Tough day at the office

We played away at Broadway and Horton cricket club, a lovely little ground surrounded by fields, with a gentle breeze to cool us from the hot midday sun.

We fielded first and Lily Blackwell opened the bowling beautifully taking a wicket with her 3rd ball. She produced a consistent spell of bowling taking a wicket in each of her overs and only conceding 4 runs.

Ami bowled 2 excellent overs, a Maiden in her first over and conceding only 1 run in her second but also taking a wicket.

Nerys produced a good bowling display nice straight balls delivered with pace, taking a wicket in the final over.

Our other wicket taker was Emily B who also had a good few dot balls to her name.

Emily B and Issy volunteered to be wicket keeper and both worked hard and stopped the ball well.

Compared to last week we gave away far fewer extras only bowling 6 wides and 3 no balls but were up against a much more polished batting side who ran very well between the wickets as well as being slightly more fluent with the bat.

The last batting pair were strong and featured Sam who managed to hit 4 4’s during his 4 overs. He was part of a pair that pushed the score on from 230 to 253.

We knew this would be a challenging target as they looked a well drilled team. Their opening bowler (Will) came on and set the tone for our innings, good straight bowling on target with the stumps – taking 2 wickets and only conceding a bye in the first over. The rest of the Broadway team were also well drilled with all bar 1 taking a wicket.

I think the opening over had a slightly subduing effect on our team and we struggled throughout to pick up runs and protect our wickets as a result we lost wickets pretty consistently throughout the innings - losing 12 wickets along the way - amongst the bowled were a couple of run outs and 3 well taken catches.

On the positive side we again showed some good running between the wickets and there were some lovely shots. Nerys hit 3 great 4s, Jasmine also hit 2 good 4s, but there were also some well struck and run 2’s.

Nerys did not let a helmet strike put her off and finished top scorer with 15 followed by Jasmine with 11.

The Wicket Adjusted top scorers were Jasmine and Lily.

Broadway picked Nerys as our player of the match and this was also the choice of Steven – well done Nerys.

Overall, despite the loss, the girls played well and none of them should feel too bad about their performance - there were many positives that we can take from the game and there is also plenty that we can learn from it to take into next weeks fixture.