Lancashire Cricket Board: Mixed Fortunes for Lancs Women

Mixed Fortunes for Lancs Women
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Dipesh Asher on 09/08/2012 14:25:00

In their final two league matches of the season Lancs Ladies had mixed fortunes
in losing narrowly to Staffs and beating The Netherlands.

Against Staffs on a gloomy day Lancs fielded first and put on one of their
poorer bowling displays of the season. Even though they removed the two most
dangerous Staffs players Wyatt and Villani early the left-handed Jones came to
the wicket and played extremely sensibly, waiting patiently for the bad ball
which was then efficiently dispatched. Staffs finished up on 154 for 7 scoring
40 from the last 5 overs. Lancs hopes in the field were boosted by 4 outstanding
catches from Nat Brown and a smart run out by Bhumika Doshi. Chasing a total of
154 in 47 overs, our most efficient bowling coming from skipper Jenny Laycock
with 2 for 22. In their innings Lancs kept ahead of the run rate being aware
that rain might be in the offing unfortunately they lost wickets at regular
intervals in the process. When Nat Brown was out for 43 followed by 2 more quick
wickets it appeared that their chances of victory had gone. However debutant
Maddy White entered the scene at number 9 and after carefully negotiating her
first few overs she was joined by number 11 Alex Hartley they took the score
from 120 to 144. At which point they required 11 to win from 7 balls. Maddy went
for another big shot which would have carried for 6 if the boundary fielder had
not held on to a good catch. Lancs lost by 10 runs.
Against The Netherlands at Monton and Weaste CC Lancs lost the toss and were put
in to bat Emma Lamb and Jess Couser put on their best opening partnership of the
season to take the score to 90 before they were separated. This set a base from
which the middle order batsmen could attack and Lancs ended up at 194 fro 5 from
50 overs. Couser 27, Lamb 62, K Cross 25 and Brown 43. This would be a tough
target for most teams to chase down and when the Dutch were reduced to 18 for 3
by Titmuss and Brown, the writing was on the wall. However Crewdson and
Stalenberg had different ideas and with 42 and 63 respectively they put The
Netherlands in with a chance. At this point Fairclough the Lancs wicket keeper
took off the gauntlets and had a bowl. She took 3 wickets in her 7 overs
including the dangerous Stalenburg and The Netherlands subsided to 157 all out.
Lancs win by 37 runs.
Lancs have finished the season in a comfortable mid-table position in Division 2
and have a young and improving team. They will be looking forward to next season
when they will be hoping to continue their improvement and put in a realistic
title challenge.
Tony Potter (Lancashire Women Team Manager)
Please also visit the Lancashire County women and girls dedicated Play-Cricket
website, where you will find fixtures, results and player averages for the full
season: http://lancashirewomen.play-cricket.com/.