Lancs Ladies do Stirling job in Scotland

All Rounder Katie Cross

It's a welcome return to the Ladies team by Kate Cross helps in hard fought victory.

Lancs Ladies made the 480 mile round trip to Scotland and came away with a hard fought victory near the site of the Batlle of Bannockburn where the English suffered an innings defeat a few hundred years ago.

On a beautiful summer's day on the banks of the River Forth, overlooked by Stirling Castle and the William Wallace Memorial Lancashire won the toss and elected to field first. A tight opening spell from opening bowlers Nat Brown and Hayley Martinus meant that Scotland were 27 for 1 after 10 overs with a smart gully catch by Megan Fairclough accounting for one of the openers.

Although wickets continued to fall at regular intervals the Lancs bowling was not as accurate as usual and it wasn't until Kate Cross and Bhumika Doshi came together as bowling partnership that the run rate was pulled back. Doshi bowled a miserly spell of 6 overs 1 for 10 and Kate finished the middle and late order off with 4 for 22 off 6.2 overs. The bowlers were aided by two run outs, a calculated piece of thinking by Caroline Blundell and a magnificent pick up and throw from Hayley Martinus. Scotland finished up bowled out for 140 from 40 of their allotted 50 overs.

The Lancashire innings started briskly with Jess Scothern punishing some wayward bowling in the first few overs but 3 Lancashire wickets fell quickly with Jess dragging a short ball on for 18, Caroline Blundell falling to a really good catch low down at slip and Nat Brown getting clean bowled. This left us at 39 for 3 and solid partnerships were needed to get us to a winning total.

The middle order duly obliged and three 40 run partnerships saw the visitors to victory. Skipper Jenny Laycock and Kate Cross took the score on to 77 before being parted. Then joined by Hayley Martinus, Kate Cross batted patiently waiting for the bad ball and the score reached 112 before she unfortunately gloved a pull shot onto her bails and departed for 38 valuable runs. Bhumika Doshi joined Hayley and they knocked off the remainder of the runs required to give Lancs a four wicket victory with Hayley finishing up on 33 not out.

Lancs had a brief celebration before leaving on their long trek home in a buoyant mood, relishing the prospect of the return match next Sunday at Fulwood and Broughton CC.

Tony Potter (Lancashire Women Senior XI Head Coach)