A well-composed innings from Georgia Hennessy proved to be crucial at New Road on Saturday as Western Storm produced a minor upset of sorts against Central Sparks.

Hennessy struck four boundaries in her 47 from 45 balls to guide her side to the finishing line, whilst Dani Gibson’s 14-ball cameo ensured there would be no late twist as she hit 24 not out, as Storm chased down the 135 they needed with seven balls to spare.

There was a time when that sort of chase might have proved too stiff four times out of five in domestic T20 cricket. These days it will probably be knocked off four times out of five, and Hennessy’s patient innings was ample evidence of why as she martialled the pursuit at just the right pace, choosing the right balls to hit, the right balls to nudge and nurdle, the right balls to defend.

Earlier Amy Jones’s 63 had threatened to put Sparks in a commanding position, but although it took the England wicketkeeper just 46 balls it was an innings that felt as though it lacked some of the effortless fluency that oozes from Jones at her best, with too many seemingly well-hit shots finding fielders in the ring. And with no other Sparks batter able to go at quicker than a run-a-ball save for Abby Freeborn – and then only just – the home side’s innings never quite got into its stride.

Hennessy played second fiddle to Fi Morris’s early belligerence as Storm set about the chase, although Sparks will rue a moment of carelessness that might well have turned the course of the contest.

13 had come off Grace Potts’s opening over, but Issy Wong’s first ball from the opposite end rivalled Jenny Gunn’s famous “whiff” for its deceptive lack of pace and bowled Morris comprehensively as she swung way too early. First blood, it seemed, but Morris was evidently wise to the situation, remonstrating immediately, and umpire Naeem Ashraf agreed. Sparks had their field wrong, and an outstretched arm thwarted the celebrations.

Potts and Wong did manage to drag things back though, and after Morris picked out Gwen Davies at point, and then Emily Arlott found Sophie Luff’s edge for Amy Jones to take the catch, the match looked in the balance at 45 for two.

Fran Wilson’s experience in such a situation was the glue that Storm needed, and with Hennessy settled the pair added 57 for the third wicket at a perfect tempo, leaving Gibson to apply the fatal blows with two inventive fours and a mammoth six over deep midwicket.

There was little doubting Storm’s superiority on the day, with Sparks looking somewhat subdued both in the field and with that bat. Wong’s early departure for just two stifled much prospect of an early charge, and whilst the habitually-prolific Joneses batted well enough in their 65-run partnership there was always the sense that runs were being left out there somewhere.

Freeborn couldn’t get going – aside from one towering six over long off – nor could Ami Campbell, nor Davies, in the limited time they were afforded at the crease, and Sparks’ innings neither got bogged down nor took off, meandering along at six-ish an over pretty much throughout, and having lost only four wickets the inability to accelerate on a pitch that didn’t look perfect but didn’t appear to misbehave noticeably either was ultimately a big factor in their defeat.

They will go into Finals Day next Sunday needing to find some ‘oomph’ in their game if they are to get the better of Stars in the semi-final, let alone Vipers after that. They undoubtedly have the players on their day. One way or another, this wasn’t their day.

By Richard Clark

Sparks made it over the line in the end – just about – but this was nothing less than an enthralling cricket match, in which both sides might have felt they held the upper hand at various stages, albeit never for very long and never with any degree of conviction.

Maybe the shorter forms of the game do offer less room for ebbs and flows, twists and turns, but these two teams gave the lie to that notion in a tussle that went right down to the bone.

Ultimately Eve Jones played the pivotal role – her 71 off 55 balls contained three 6s and seven 4s, and as much fluent strokeplay as one can reasonably expect inside twenty overs. Coming on the back of her fine Hundred form and then another half-century in last week’s victory against Vipers, there can’t be any batter in the country in better form right now.

Jones’s innings was almost enough to see Sparks home, but when Sonia Odedra prised her out trying to flip the ball over short fine leg for a boundary that would have put the home side within two runs of victory with seven balls left to get them, only to find the grateful hands of Yvonne Graves, the complexion of the game changed once more.

A spearing yorker from Odedra cleaned up Emily Arlott next ball, leaving Issy Wong and new batter Chloe Hill to find a run a ball off Grace Ballinger’s final over. The pair traded singles from the first four balls, the sprawling Hill somehow escaping a vociferous run out appeal along the way, before Wong lifted the tension by fair clobbering the penultimate ball through mid-on for four.

Had things turned out differently, Odedra may well have been taking the plaudits. Her four overs brought figures of two for 14 and were a model of precision, conceding only one boundary and consistently giving the batters nothing to which they could free their arms. Lucy Higham’s off spin, too, was impressive, yielding just 19 runs.

The one-time England seamer had returned to the attack with Sparks needing 31 from 30 balls with seven wickets in hand, and conceded just two from the 16th over as Thea Brookes struggled to get her away. Kirstie Gordon’s next five balls brought just another two runs, and a game that Sparks had well within their grasp was suddenly sliding out of it.

One ball can so often change things, though, and Jones lofted Gordon’s sixth over long off. Shackles broken, nerves calmed. Despite the loss of Brookes, Jones and Wong collected 11 from the next over, leaving just enough breathing space to collect 10 off the final two overs.

Earlier on, Odedra (22) and Beth Harmer (26) had built what seemed an imposing platform as 53 runs came from the power play. Essex’s Harmer took a particular liking to Wong, driving her through the off side for back-to-back fours, before seizing on a short ball next up and pulling it some way beyond the rope at deep midwicket.

But both went quickly and although Abbey Freeborn (33), Higham (22), and Theresa Graves (14) all made useful contributions, none could maintain that initial scoring rate as wickets began to fall. A total of 136 for 8 wasn’t quite one thing or the other, but certainly wasn’t what Lightning would have been hoping for from 72 for 2 at the mid-way point.

Sparks’ reply began in harem scarem style, Sophie Munro’s opening over containing a boundary each for Jones and Marie Kelly, four leg byes down to fine leg, a couple of wides (one legside, one off), a scampered two, and finally the wicket of Kelly who, unable to repeat her Hove heroics, hoicked one up in the air to Harmer rushing in from cover.

When Milly Home went three balls later, Sparks were 17 for 2 it was Lightning’s turn to have a spring in their steps. But Jones found solid company in Gwen Davies (15) and Brookes (17), and Sparks were always ahead of the DLS par until those see-saw final exchanges got them home.

——–

Follow Richard Clark on Twitter @glassboy68

By Richard Clark

There was much to celebrate at Bristol – Shafali & Sophia, Rana & Bhatia, Eccles (tone or cakes, take your pick), Brunt’s outswinger, Anya’s inswinger, THAT CATCH, the media positivity – social and mainstream – and plenty more besides.

But it’s not my intention to dwell on any of these because you will already have read and heard copious amounts on all of them. And because for all those stand-outs from a tremendous four days I came home with something else that will stick in my memory.

I don’t know whether they had just arrived, or perhaps had been sitting elsewhere up until then, but some time shortly before lunch on Saturday I became aware of people shuffling into their seats behind me. It turned out to be (one assumed) a father and two daughters, I’m guessing aged around 8 and 10, and for the next couple of hours the father – a patient chap, and clearly knowledgeable – took on the task of explaining to his girls what was happening.

We all know how difficult it is to describe cricket to the uninitiated. Where do you begin? And once you’ve begun, where do you end? The game is so utterly bonkers when you set about unravelling it all that even the most seasoned observer will readily admit to learning something new all the time.

But our man did his best, and his best was eminently passable, I assure you. Inevitably, though, the obvious question came soon enough from one of the girls. I can’t be sure – memory isn’t what it was these days – but I think it was after a few words centred on the square leg umpire being called “the square leg umpire.”

“Why?”

Every parent lives in dread of this question, the worst question your child can possibly ask. Worse even than “Are we nearly there yet?” Yes, that bad.

“Thank you for your explanation, father. However, I must inform you that, having given the matter due consideration, I consider it inadequate. Please try again, and do better this time.”

You have failed. In order to simplify things, maybe, you’ve tried to go for the lazy, half-cooked option and hoped to get away with it while she was distracted by that pigeon, or those clouds. But she saw you coming, and she’s not having it. Not only have you failed, but she has now pointed out to everyone around you that you have failed. Please try again, and do better this time. No pressure.

But at the same time it’s the BEST question you can be asked, because the alternative is a child who isn’t interested. And these girls WERE interested. So he did try better, and so the afternoon passed. There was never any hint of boredom, or mischief, just watching and chatting, chatting and watching. At one point even a tentative “Come on, Sophie,” was ventured by one of them, although it was in definite need of an exclamation mark that would have carried it across the Nevil Road ground and, who knows, might have sprung a much-needed wicket to spark an England victory march. Ah well…

Tellingly, when they all agreed to go home at the tea interval, it was the girls who were the more reluctant parties to the agreement. I suspect in the end there may have been bribery involved. We’ve all been there.

I tell this story apropos of nothing really. It’s not especially related to women’s cricket – after all, it could easily have been a couple of lads, and a men’s cricket match (and a mother, come to that). The scenario would have been the same. But the fact is, it wasn’t either of those things. It was two girls watching a women’s cricket match and learning about the game. And it was wonderful.

——–

Follow Richard Clark on Twitter @glassboy68

By Richard Clark

We’re less than fifteen overs into the game and Central Sparks are going along quite nicely. Already 75 on the board for the loss of just two wickets, with Amy Jones on 26 and just getting going, whilst Gwenan Davies is equally set at the other end. There’s time to spare and a big score on the cards.

The wily Katie Levick is on, but not causing too many issues until, with the final ball of her second over, she entices Jones down the pitch for a lofted on drive. Whether the ball isn’t really there for the shot, or whether Jones doesn’t quite get the connection she wants, it doesn’t come off. Alex MacDonald pouches the catch at mid-on and Jones is gone for 26. Sparks subside for 144, leaving almost twelve overs unused, and Northern Diamonds canter to a nine-wicket win.

It’s harsh to blame the defeat on Jones, but equally Sparks most experienced batter has got herself out with the proverbial “all day” to bat, and left her side in a precarious position, from which they don’t emerge well.

That was last August – the opening day of the inaugural Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy.

Fast forward to the new season.  Jones has already taken a century off the same Diamonds attack as her side pulled off an audacious opening day win at Headingley, and now she’s back on home turf for the first time since that costly misjudgement.

Sparks are not so well set now.  31 for two, and already into the eleventh over, the innings has started sluggishly, added a tinge of respectability only by Western Storm’s generosity with their ‘wides tally’.  Almost immediately she loses another partner in the cruellest of circumstances, slamming a straight drive back at Dani Gibson, which the bowler manages to divert onto the stumps to run out Davies.  41 for three.

For too long, perhaps, there was a tendency to think that England were lucky to have such a capable deputy to Sarah Taylor, when what we should have been thinking was that we were lucky to have such a capable Amy Jones.  Jones is too good, too talented, to be thought of as anybody’s deputy.  One wonders whether this mindset seeped into her own thinking – she’s always seemed to lack the ‘swagger’ of a player who knows she belongs on the international stage.

We are about to see Amy Jones swagger.

After 18 overs, at 60 for three, there’s still more splutter than spark about the home side’s innings, and with the inexperienced Milly Home for company much rests on Jones’s shoulders.  As if to emphasise the point, Gibson puts down a difficult caught and bowled chance when she is on 14, and the next ball sails over mid-on for four.  It’s not the start of the onslaught, not yet, but it is a turning point.

Two overs later Jones lofts Gibson for the first six of the match, then adds a boundary to rub it in.  Mollie Robbins replaces Gibson, and Jones puts her into the Hollies Stand for another six.  Before much longer she has her fifty, at exactly a run a ball, unperturbed by the loss of Home along the way.

This is the sort of innings Amy Jones has played more than once for England, the sort where she looks so good… and then gets herself out.  She nearly does exactly that here too, driving Hennessy into the hands of the diving Lauren Filer at mid-off.  But Filer spills what was, in fairness, an awkward chance.  Two balls later Jones does it again, this time finding the leaping Heather Knight at cover.  This one is not a difficult catch but the England skipper can’t hold on, nor can she at the second grab as the balls falls to the ground.  There’s a third drop soon after, but this one is by a gentleman in the Hollies Stand, and he’s excused by an understandable preoccupation with the pint in his other hand.  

There won’t be any more chances.

The hundred comes off 83 balls – perfect acceleration – and Storm have no answers.  The next fifty runs take just twenty deliveries, including three more sixes, ramps, scoops, drives, and a baffling – to us mere mortals – reverse sort-of-pull off Shrubsole, if you don’t mind, to bring up the 150.

Only now does she tire a little.  I kid you not that at one point I was seriously doing the maths to work out whether a double-hundred was within range, but in the end she ‘makes do’ with 163 not out.  A record for the competition, and one that somebody will need to bat very well to beat.  The ovation from the 250-strong crowd is warm and genuine, and to a man, woman and child it’s a standing one.

Sparks total of 295 for seven proves beyond Storm’s reach, although Knight does her best to atone with 59 in a century opening stand, and her opening partner Lauren Parfitt is unfortunate to fall for 91 – by some margin the highest score by a non-professional so far in this season’s competition – just as she and Sophie Luff are positioning their side well for the closing stages.

From 183 for one, Storm lose wickets regularly as Ria Fackrell in particular puts the squeeze on.  Fackrell was the sixth bowler used, having taken none for 50 off seven overs against Diamonds two days previously.  Here she picks up four for 34 at a time when Eve Jones might have been wondering who to turn to.

But this was Amy Jones’s day, one that she should remember every time she goes out to bat, because Jones is as naturally gifted a batter as England have in their ranks. If she needed proof of that herself, she has it now.

Richard Clark at Edgbaston

Diamonds dominated their clash with Central Sparks at Edgbaston, ultimately cruising home by nine wickets after Lauren Winfield-Hill (72) and Hollie Armitage’s (54*) opening stand of 139 had driven a coach and horses through the home side’s sub-par 144 all out, an innings holed below the waterline by a superb five for 20 from Katherine Brunt.

The Yorkshire pair got off to a confident start in their chase and were well ahead of the rate throughout, as Sparks strived for much-needed breakthroughs that never came. None of Sparks bowlers could stem the steady flow of runs and by the second sanitisation break after 12 overs, Diamonds were already almost halfway to their target on 61 without loss.

Issy Wong bowled with the sort of pace that earned her a call-up to England’s recent bio-bubble training camp, but there were seven wides in her five overs and England coach Lisa Keightley will want to find the key to ironing that out without compromising the sharpness that saw both Diamonds openers distinctly hurried now and then.

The spinners came in for particular treatment, Sarah Glenn and Anisha Patel conceding 71 between them in ten overs, but that was largely a consequence of the freedom afforded the batsmen by their dominance of the situation.

Winfield-Hill, especially, looked in good form, driving cleanly through the offside before cutting loose – adding to her nine boundaries with two lofted shots for six over mid-off once past her half-century – whilst Armitage played with intelligence in her supporting role. Even Nat Sciver hit the only ball she faced through cover-point for the crispest of fours, as if to emphasise the ease of the visitors’ win.

Edgbaston was an eerie place at the start of play with its vast, cavernous stands devoid of spectators, and the surreal feeling was added to by a distinctly off-centre pitch which meant a boundary of no more than 40-yards on the Western side of the ground, whilst the rope on the Eric Hollies side must have been close to twice that. Frankly it was not a good look for a tournament being marketed widely as important for the women’s game in this country, and a match being live-streamed. Perhaps this, then, was one occasion when we should be grateful for fixed cameras…

Sparks’ day started well enough. The Joneses – Eve and Amy – made steady progress to 30 without los after seven overs from Brunt and Beth Langston, but they perhaps lacked the fluency that Winfield-Hill and Armitage would later demonstrate, and Diamonds protected that shorter boundary well with disciplined line and length before Brunt had Eve Jones (15) caught behind from one that climbed a little off a good length, and then Langston enticed Marie Kelly (4) to drive loosely to Brunt at cover to leave the home side 41 for 2.

Gwenan Davies joined Amy Jones and would play Sparks’ best hand of the piece, with 33 from 42 balls. Sensibly aggressive against Katie Levick in particular, she mixed defence and attack well, and at 75 for 2 after fifteen overs the pair were setting a decent platform at a good rate until Jones tried to go over mid-on but could only pick out the safe hands of Alex MacDonald. A rash shot that didn’t need to be played at that time, it exposed the middle and lower order when another ten or more overs of accumulation were called for.

Thereafter Sparks… ahem… lost their spark as the scoring dried up. Tellingly, there were just three more boundaries in the remaining 23 overs, and when Brunt returned for her second spell she did so with positive relish. The four over burst yielded four for eight – three of them clean bowled – as Sparks slumped from 123 for 4 to 144 all out, which would prove to be nowhere near enough.

Sparks return to Edgbaston on Monday to take on a Thunder side buoyed by their opening day win against Lightning, whilst Diamonds host Lightning at Chester-le-Street. By Monday evening the North Group could already be a two-horse race, or it could be neck-and-neck between all four…

—————-

Follow Richard Clark on Twitter @glassboy68

By Richard Clark

With “real” county cricket in abeyance, we got together with @WomensCricDay, @WomensCricBlog and WomensCricket.net to run the CRICKETish Cup – a virtual women’s cricket competition played in cyberspace!

On a thrilling night at Lord’s, North East Warriors carried off the inaugural Cricketish Cup, defying the odds to defeat favourites Surrey by just two runs!

Division 1 newcomers Warriors had already taken the scalp of Sussex in the semi-final and repeated that underdog victory as Laura Ellison defended 7 off the last over in a nail-biting climax.

Surrey had looked in control as Sophia Dunkley (19) and Aylish Cranstone (18) took them within 25 runs of victory with more than four overs left, building on the foundation laid by Bryony Smith (29) and Nat Sciver (25), but both were dismissed in the space of five balls and the Surrey lower order couldn’t find a way over the line from there.

Skipper Hannah Jones took two off each of Ellison’s first two balls to leave her side needing four from four, but when she fell lbw two balls later it left Rhianna Southby to find a boundary off the final ball. She could only find Lizzie Scott at midwicket and the trophy was off to the North East amid huge celebrations.

Earlier, openers Laura Hockaday (21) and Layla Tipton (22) produced another solid opening partnership of 44, only to be dismissed off consecutive deliveries, and when Warriors subsided to 74 for 5 after the unfortunate run out of Ami Campbell for 13 they looked in danger of falling short of a challenging score.

However, youngster Ciara Boaden (30) more than made up for her part in Campbell’s departure as she marshalled the lower order expertly and helped set a target of 131 for Surrey to win.

Jones took three wickets for the Oval side, but the pick of the bowlers was undoubtedly Beth Kerins with 2 for 13 off four miserly overs.

Warriors backed up an excellent fielding display in the semi-final with similar vigour here as they threw themselves at everything to keep Smith and Sciver from cutting loose. There were two wickets each for skipper Helen Fenby, Bailey Wanless and Lizzie Scott who finished as leading wicket-taker for the competition with eight, whilst Tipton topped the run-scoring charts with 108 across the three games.

The Player of the Match Award, meanwhile, went to Boaden for her excellent innings and two fine catches to oust Sciver and Cranstone at critical moments.

So the Trophy travels up to the North East, and it may stay there permanently if rumoured plans to play real cricket again one day come to fruition…