Hampshire pulled off the heist of the decade, winning their semi-final against Surrey by four wickets despite being behind the DLS par score for the vast majority of the run-chase.

Battling driving rain, fading light, and a pitch which eventually resembled the Somme, Georgia Adams and Mary Taylor shared a winning 104-run partnership which propelled their team into Sunday’s final against Lancashire.

Adams’ unbeaten century will win all the plaudits, but the more remarkable effort was from Hampshire’s no.8 Taylor, who struck a maiden List A fifty (her previous highest List A score was just 21), driving, flicking and pulling.

Crucially, she achieved a strike rate of 100, ensuring that by the time she was hit on the elbow by a ball from Alice Monaghan which reared up at her, Hampshire were within touching distance of their target:

“The physio said, do you want any painkillers? I said no, let’s crack on,” she told CRICKETher. “I was in the zone and I didn’t want to disrupt that in any way. I probably would have batted with my arm falling off!”

Taylor had joined the fray with Hampshire six wickets down and still requiring 102 to win: Surrey would have felt they were into the Hampshire “tail”. But Adams and Taylor were able to gradually whittle down the required runs, first getting ahead of DLS and then – when it became apparent that the umpires were going to see this one through to its end, come what may – managing to overhaul their mammoth 288-run target.

Hypocaust points out that several other record run-chases have been achieved in 50-over women’s cricket this season:

Perhaps the key difference is that the other four record-breaking run chases of 2025 took place amid a baking hot summer which has now vanished. Today’s effort from Hampshire was achieved despite, not because of, the prevailing conditions.

“I was a bit cold [coming out to bat],” Taylor said. “Gads [Adams] said, ‘play straight and hit the sight screen, hit the gaps and we’ll try and run twos’. That proved quite difficult when the mud started clogging up our shoes.”

Surrey had opted to bat first after winning the toss, in spite of the weather forecast – a choice which surprised everyone, going against the general cricketing wisdom that if rain is forecast then it is always better to chase and know exactly what you need to do to stay ahead of DLS.

Today, however, that wisdom did not quite apply, due to a very unfortunate issue with the electronic scorecard, which flickered off in the first over of the Hampshire chase and never came back on. Energy company Utilita’s slogan “Life With Power”, which adorns the scoreboard, appeared a brilliant trolling exercise at the expense of the hosts.

Eventually, the club found a temporary solution in the form of the old-style scoreboard above the groundskeeper’s cubbyhole:

Ten overs in, Hampshire had reached 73-2 – exactly par with DLS. That was largely thanks to Freya Kemp, who brought up a 26-ball fifty in the 11th, after clobbering seven fours and two sixes – almost all between midwicket and long-on.

But when Kemp swung, missed and was bowled by Kalea Moore, the DLS par suddenly took a flying jump. It took another one when Abi Norgrove sent a catch straight into the hands of short midwicket; seconds later, the umpires were pulling the players off the field with Hampshire on 103-4, 20 runs behind DLS par.

It looked like it might all be over… but the shower was brief and 20 minutes later, the umpires brought the players back on.

Hampshire then lost Nancy Harman in the 20th over, leg-before to Phoebe Franklin, and seemed to be falling even further behind DLS – but, intriguingly, Win-Her saw the situation differently, putting Hampshire at a 63% chance of winning:

At this point I was so disillusioned with our Win Calculator that I suggested we might rename it Put-It-In-The-Bin-Her. How wrong I was!

As time ticked away and the chase went from unthinkable to possibly-reachable, nerves ratcheted up around the ground. Martin from Women’s Cricket Blog could be seen pacing up and down, Freya Kemp refused to move from her seat for 25 long minutes, while next-woman-in Freya Davies – whose metronomic bowling and three wickets at the death had been critical in preventing Surrey reaching 300 – had to wrap her bat in a towel as she sat for 45 long minutes waiting to see if she would be required.

The overwhelming feeling from everyone when Adams scored the winning runs, just two overs after bringing up her hundred, was therefore relief – as well as knowing that the real job isn’t yet done. “I’m trying to stay level because we’ve got to play the final yet,” Taylor admitted.

Whatever happens on Sunday, this semi-final will live long in the memory.