Our team was at home against Vale's Diamonds team. We played the same team at Vale last week and beat them very convincingly, so we knew that they would arrive at Castle like a pride of wounded lions. We struggled to get a full team, because of half term, Somerset Pathway selections and the Vitality Blast game at the county ground. Elspeth Craik kindly stepped up from the Greens and we used Graham Driskel (u11 Falcons) as our 11th player on the day, shout out to Faith for also making herself available after we asked to reconcider.
Megan was our captain and even though Vale won the toss, they asked her what she wants to do (Very Sneeky), and she said field first and they went with that.
Emily and Jess opened the bowling for us, and they did well to contain the very talented batsmen of Vale. There were a few run out opportunities, which would have resulted in both the openers being out on different occasions. Our fielders just opted to throw to the wrong stumps on both occasions. Our first change in bowling was Gemma and Pippa who carried on bowling with real commitment. Second change brought on Jazzi and Megan. 10 overs in, we had them at 48 odd with no wickets yet. Both their openers retired in the 11th over. Megan struck - bowling the new batsmen for a duck. Jazzi's bowling was spot on. Third change was Graham and Lulu. Both of them bowled really well containing Vale with Lulu getting a stumping from Faith. The moment of the match for me, was when Jess took the last over and bowled a pearler which was nicked and Faith so casually took a brilliant catch to her right. It was definitely one of those moments where a silence struck the ground with everyone trying to work out what just happenned, and the silence being broken by Faith's jubelant cry of "YES I GOT IT" Priceless. We finished with a last run-out stumping from Faith. Vale's final score 127/4.
We sent in Katie and Elspeth as a left right opening pair. The bowling was ridiculously fast and accurate and they manged to get the early wicked of Elspeth. In came Megan and together with Katie got us to 43 after 10 overs. Now I want to highlight how high the standard of bowling was from Vale, for these girls to show that kind of resilliance and control to see the top end bowlers out, deserves a lot of praise. So the foundation was laid, and both Katie and Meg started scoring more freely and it was here where you could see the game became a contest. Megan retired on 30 and Katie was run out in an effort to presurise the fielding side on 25. Enter Gemma Quirk. From the first ball Gemma faced she was pushing for every run and even when she had to face the opening bowlers, she was NOT fased at all, and hit a couple of fantastic boundaries (in very thick outfield!) off very high quality bowling. She was supported by Jess whose running between the wickets was fantastic. It was an absolute joy to see how hungry our girls were in the middle, never thinking that this game was lost. Jess was run out and Lulu and Gemma made a valiant effort but ended just 10 runs short of Vale's total: 117/3.

Really great effort from everyone who played yesterday. It is my belief that this is where the girls game is going to make the biggest change in peoples perspective of Women's sport. All of those boys who played yesterday saw these girls playing to their level and they will have daughters one day who will have the opportunity to play their sports, because Dad knows that she can achieve anything. You must be very proud of these girls and the fantastic job they are doing.

Thank you to everyone who helped yesterday and here is to carrying on the great work!

https://tauntondeane.play-cricket.com/website/results/5964057