Cheshire fell to defeat in Birmingham as the Women’s County Championship resumed after a two-month break. And lady luck did not smile on Cheshire here as three of their top four fell to questionable umpiring decisions early in their innings.
Added to some cheap wickets given away in the early overs of the reply, Cheshire soon found themselves 34-6. Natalie Heap (24) led a recovery of sorts, but any realistic victory chance had ended.
Cheshire also struggled in the later stages of their spell in the field. Cheshire were doing well when Warwickshire were reduced to 61-4, after economical opening spells from Dawn Prestidge and Kate Skelhorn and three wickets for Lorna Thomas.
But Cheshire then let their bowling and fielding standards slip, and 30 from Frances Clarkson and an unbeaten 27 from Rebecca Weller took their side to a good total, given the slow outfield and the reduction of the match to 45 overs per side.
Women’s Twenty20 County Championship Division Three
Cheshire v Middlesex. Match cancelled.
Cheshire 85, Essex 88-4. Essex won by six wickets
Derbyshire 65, Cheshire 66-1. Cheshire won by nine wickets.
In the past week the Route Organisation-sponsored Cheshire team also returned from Warwickshire having secured the runners-up spot in Division Three of the inaugural Women’s Twenty20 Championship. This represents a more than satisfactory result considering Cheshire were missing several key players. These absences allowed several young players to make their mark, and all performed admirably.
The first day of the scheduled two-day tournament was spent watching massive amounts of rain cascade from the skies. This meant that Cheshire would not play Middlesex in the round-robin tournament, and that each side would play two matches on a single day to decide the championship, promotion and relegation issues.
Against Essex, Cheshire performed well save for the first six overs of each innings. Unfortunately this left them too much to do in the remaining overs. Cheshire stumbled to 7-2 after six overs of their own innings against some accurate bowling from Beth MacGregor and New Zealand international Lucy Doolan. Macgregor returned later in the innings to take the last two wickets and finish with three for six from 3.5 overs.
In contrast, Essex reached 37 for no loss inside six overs. Three wickets then fell quickly to Cheshire spinners Hannah Gradwell and Lorna Thomas, before the game was taken away from Cheshire by a stand of 31 between Doolan and Beth Wild. Essex then went on to beat Middlesex and land the Division Three title.
There was further success for Cheshire’s spinners in the afternoon match as they made the most of helpful conditions to share seven wickets in a rout of the Derbyshire batting line up. Gradwell took 3-13, Thomas 2-4 in four overs and Emma Lingard claimed her first wickets for the county’s senior team with 2-20. Kate Coppack, who also made her debut in the morning match, also took her first ever wicket for this team.
Cheshire then completed victory in this relegation decider by reaching their target inside 10 overs against a wayward Derbyshire attack. Lingard carried her bat through the chase and Shami Ahmed hit an unbeaten 22 at a run a ball to become Cheshire’s top scorer for the second time in the day.
