Sunday 23rd June saw the second win in a row for the West Chilt & St James women* in their 35 over match against Burgess Hill.
*We entered this SCF 11 a-side league jointly with St James-Montefiore since both clubs struggle separately to get a full team every week.
This Sunday we struggled even to get 11 players between us and ended up one short; seven players from WC&TCC and three from St James. Luckily for us Burgess Hill also only had 10.
We won the toss & opted to bat (because two of our 10 were arriving late). After a boringly defensive 17 overs we had reached 75 runs for the loss of just one wicket. Some stern words at the drinks break led to some rather more enthusiastic running between the stumps (cue ironic cheers from teammates as the batters finally ran a two) and some frankly stupid batting which finally successfully led to the opener leaving the pitch and some serious batters taking her place. Number 3 notched up 36 before a rather too enthusiastic run call saw her a good five yards short of the crease, it was then up to 4 ,5 & 6 (Jenna, Sophie, Harriet) to show us all how it should be done with a boundary off every other ball. Final score 180 from 35 overs with the loss of just four wickets.
It was clear from the start of the Burgess Hill innings that our bowlers had everything in hand; keeping the run rate down and getting early wickets. Burgess Hill held firm in the middle order with Charlotte Bates reaching 44 and opener Charley Hepburn getting 20 but the game was won in the 30th over; all out for 120.
Pick of the bowlers - Sophie Grayson (5,2,10,3) and Harriet Thornton (7,2,25,2) from West Chilt and Hannah Van Nierkerk (5,1,13,3) from St James.
Play Cricket is not clever enough to allow us to post the results as a joint club so the match details can be found on the St James Play Cricket site https://sjm.play-cricket.com/website/results/3741154
Some of the information is missing (Sophie & Harriet are ‘unsure’). We've asked St James if this can be updated.
*we each play the T20 8 a-side ‘on our own’
Picture credit - Peter Chapman, Burgess Hill
Excellent news! The Women are back above the radar!