Charlotte Edwards blames Southern Brave's wooden spoon on slow start

Southern Brave never took control of their Women's Hundred title defence and must come back stronger next year, head coach Charlotte Edwards says.

Brave lost two close games to London Spirit and Manchester Originals either side of a tie with Northern Superchargers to start the season but, apart from their solitary win of the season in a rain-affected clash with Oval Invincibles, they fell away badly.

A record of six defeats from eight games was telling, perhaps none more so than a nine-wicket loss to Welsh Fire in their last match, at home on Wednesday.

Brave were bowled out for 103, thanks largely to Hayley Matthews ' 4 for 14 and Jess Jonassen 's 3 for 21. Fire then overhauled the target with 26 balls to spare, Matthews sharing an unbroken stand of 72 with Tammy Beaumont, who struck 59 off 40 balls.

Fire's direct route to Sunday's final at Lord's was confirmed a few hours later, with Oval Invincibles unable to better their net run-rate in beating Trent Rockets by five wickets. That left Invincibles to face London Spirit in Saturday's eliminator, and Southern Brave to pick over an underwhelming campaign.

"The start was particularly hard because we played well and we didn't win," Edwards told ESPNcricinfo. "And then the back four games we probably haven't played well. When you don't start the competition as well and then you don't end it well, you're probably going to be sat in the position we're in.

"In different games we've bowled well or we've batted well, but we haven't put a complete game together and what I've learned this season in the Hundred is the teams are getting stronger, the depth in each team is getting more and more and if you're not quite on it, you're going to get hurt and lose games of cricket, which we've done on a regular basis at the moment."

While the reality of Brave's failed title defence was still raw, Edwards said a full analysis of what went wrong and how the side could turn that around wouldn't happen until the end of this year.

By that time, she hopes more would be known about the 2025 edition of the tournament, with the ECB seeking private investment ahead of the new season's start.

"We'll go away and review what we've done so far, areas we need to improve, areas that we've done really well. I think that's important, because it's easy to gloss over those," she said. "I won't try to be too emotional and get involved in that right now but the bottom line is we need to be better than we were this year."

Edwards, who will coach Hampshire's Tier 1 team in the top level of the restructured women's domestic competition next year, has had her contract with Sydney Sixers extended for another two WBBL seasons.

And she is certain she wants to continue as coach at Southern Brave and Mumbai Indians, who failed to defend their WPL title this year when they were eliminated by eventual champions Royal Challengers Bangalore.

"I think I'm out of contract today [Wednesday] with the Brave, so hopefully they'll re-sign me and it hasn't gone too badly this year," she said. "And at Mumbai, I'll be hopefully looking to re-sign there.

"It's a great time to be involved as a player and as a coach. I've loved my time in India, hopefully looking to renegotiate that contract but we'll have to wait and see."

Edwards also backed calls by Jhulan Goswami , her Mumbai Indians bowling coach, on ESPNcricinfo's Powerplay podcast for franchise leagues to be protected by exclusive windows to avoid clashing with bilateral series, as happened with the WPL and England's tour of New Zealand earlier this year. Another scheduling conflict looms later this year with the closing stages of the WBBL overlapping with England's tour of South Africa.

"It has to be three windows for me and that's WPL, Hundred and WBBL," Edwards said. "They're the three biggest comps. That's no disrespect to all the other comps, but I think they're the three biggest comps in women's cricket. They're so important for the growth of the game.

"I'm absolutely certain that with three comps that only last a month each, there's nine months of the year to play international cricket. That certainly would be my recommendation, because we want the best players playing international cricket and we want the best players playing franchise cricket. It's a no-brainer for me."