It was unusual to see Sophie Ecclestone with a brand-new ball in her left hand at The Oval on Sunday, but her immediate impact means that it is a sight that may become increasingly common.
Ecclestone has only once bowled the first over of a T20I innings for England, and rarely does so in any short-form cricket, but seized her chance with the new ball: after 10 balls, all of them bowled by Ecclestone, MI London were 2 for 2. The game was over as a contest before it had ever really begun, and Manchester Super Giants romped to a six-wicket win with 28 balls to spare.
The move owed to Ecclestone's remarkable head-to-head record against Hayley Matthews, who chopped on for a four-ball duck on Sunday after Alice Davidson-Richards had been cleaned up second ball. It was the 12th time that Ecclestone has dismissed Matthews in just 145 balls across T20 cricket, and vindicated captain Meg Lanning's decision to open the bowling with her usual middle-overs banker.
"She was a really good match-up to those two batters," Lanning said. "She's so good, she can bowl at any phase in the game. We've held her back a touch throughout this tournament and she's bowled through the middle really well but [I was] keen to get her into the game. She's one of the best bowlers in the world: if she's on, it makes it really difficult for the batters.
"To be fair, I think against most right-handers she's a good match-up, especially early on. She's very difficult to face… You don't know whether you're going to get beaten on the inside or the outside. As soon as there's a bit of indecision there, that puts a lot of doubt in the batter's mind.
"She's able to mix up her pace and when she gets that really nice shape on the ball, she's pretty hard to face… She's certainly someone we'll consider moving forward as well in the powerplay."
Ecclestone finished with remarkable figures of 2 for 7 from her 20 balls, as well as taking two catches and pulling off a direct-hit run-out. She was unsurprisingly named Player of the Match and said after that she had "absolutely loved" the chance to set the tone for her team.
"I've not been given much of an opportunity [with the new ball] so it's nice to bowl in the powerplay and get a couple of wickets," Ecclestone said. "It's quite nice to get in the game early.
"I absolutely loved it. It's nice being up there and straight in the action. Hopefully, that can continue - and hopefully Meg will give me another opportunity."
Super Giants sit third in the table after their third win, bouncing back quickly from a home defeat to Trent Rockets, and the top three teams are already starting to pull away from the chasing pack in the women's Hundred.
"The beauty of this competition is you don't have too long to dwell on anything," Lanning said. "We were pretty clear on the areas we felt we could improve from the other day, and for the most part today, we were excellent… We had a very clear plan in what we wanted to do, and obviously we got off to a nice start with Soph bowling extremely well."
MI London remain winless after five games, with Hayley Matthews and Melie Kerr struggling to make an impact after captaining their countries at the recent T20 World Cup. Head coach, Lisa Keightley, admitted their overseas players had underperformed but said that it could not be blamed on fatigue alone.
"That's an easy out, isn't it? Other players [who played in the World Cup] are doing really well," Keightley said. "You just want to get going really quickly in the Hundred. Losing two up front put us under a huge amount of pressure. We're still trying to work out our best combinations. When you're not playing the way you want, you're always second-guessing."