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.

As we departed Taunton at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning, we knew the journey up the M5 to Edgbaston would be worth it. We were at last going to reveal one of the great mysteries of women’s cricket… how to pronounce Tilly Kesteven’s last name.

The answer? Ker-steven.

Tilly herself was only too happy to provide the answer, after scoring 29 from 37 balls for Lancashire in their 5-run win against Bears – although we did have to hare around the outfield at Edgbaston to ensure we caught her just before she disappeared into the dressing room!

Despite the result, if we’d been asked to name a Player of the Match today, I’d have chosen Nat Wraith, who finished unbeaten on 58 from 34 balls. With Bears reduced to 101 for six in the 14th over, it seemed like the match was all-but over, but Wraith’s innings at least made a game of it, taking the equation down to 14 runs required from the final over.

Nat Wraith has had an interesting few months. In October, the perennial Western Storm wicketkeeper unexpectedly signed for Bears, saying that she was excited to “be part of a new environment“. So far, the move has proved Somerset’s loss: Wraith has already helped Bears achieve a record run-chase (the highest ever in women’s List A cricket in England).

Here, she did something which none of the England batters managed over the winter, and found the measure of Alana King, effortlessly lofting the leg-spinner over deep midwicket for six before doing the same thing to Sophie Morris two overs later. Fi Morris did shell her in the deep on 41*, in a move that for a while looked like it might have cost Lancashire the game.

Had Wraith’s ramp shot off the first ball of Grace Potts’s final over made it to the boundary, it still might have done… but the aforementioned Kesteven (Ed: remember, it’s Ker-steven) dived to cut it off, and instead, Wraith and Hannah Baker ran two.

Wraith found the boundary next ball, pulling through midwicket to leave the equation 8 from 4… but a wily Potts then spotted Wraith moving back across her stumps and followed her, meaning her cut was not quite clean enough to pierce the ring.

A dot ball was worth its weight in gold at that point – it meant Wraith felt compelled to run on the next ball, leaving Baker on strike, who miscued a catch to cover.

With one ball remaining of the innings, Potts sent down a leg-side wide and the crowd held their breath… until Potts sealed the deal with another dot ball, after a huge swing-and-a-miss from Hannah Hardwick yielded nothing. Wraith, stranded at the other end, could only watch on in frustration.

For the Bears, the real issue was their failure to capitalise on an excellent start, having reduced Lancashire to 37 for 4 at the end of the powerplay. Emma Lamb, having herself hot-footed it over from Taunton early this morning (Ed: we might even have passed her on the motorway!), lasted just 4 balls before being bowled through the gate by Issy Wong, while Abbey Freeborn took an excellent leaping catch to snaffle Morris’s attempted cut.

But – not for the first time in this competition – Lancashire’s middle-order bailed them out: Kesteven and Ailsa Lister shared a 69-run partnership for the fifth wicket, before Alana King and Tara Norris enabled Lancashire to add 43 runs from the last four, despite a 20-minute rain interruption between the 19th and 20th overs.

In reply, Davina Perrin got the Bears off to a flyer, but the 20-year-old Grace Johnson – who is rapidly becoming One To Watch – took out her stumps in the final over of the powerplay. Laura Harris couldn’t match her Friday fireworks with a Sunday showstopper, skying a catch miles in the air after managing just one boundary, and Bears were left struggling… at least until Wraith breathed life into the game.

Oddly, the match has done little to impact on current standings: at the time of writing, Lancashire remain in 6th place, while Warwickshire sit at number 3.

But the Blast has an odd, lopsided schedule, with Warwickshire already having played 5 games, while Surrey (who are top) have played just 3 – so today’s result might yet come back to bite the Bears.