Southgate Women vs Gunnersbury

Southgate 375

Gunnersbury 269

24 over pairs match, scoring starts at 200

Southgate’s Women’s team played a friendly match against Gunnesbury on Bank Holiday Monday. Gunnesbury CC are one of the most established women’s clubs in the country, with 3 hard ball teams - their 1st team frequently win the South of England league and National T20 Cup. We contacted them in the Winter about potentially playing a softball friendly match and they put together a team of women associated with their club - Mum’s of players and admin helpers etc. This led to an interesting dynamic where we were playing against a much more established club, but a team with less experience than we now have!

Captain Emma Dangerfield won the toss and chose to bat. She and Geethika Ayomi batted as our first and last pair as Gunns had 13 players to our 10. Across their two innings the pair racked up a net score of 53 runs. Finding fluency while batting was difficult with some of the inexperienced Gunns bowlers struggling to get the ball down with enough pace to hit, but Fran Fell batted particularly well, hitting firmly to both sides of the wicket. 

With a big total on the board and a desire to keep everybody developing, all players bowled at least two overs. Pooja Patel and Soph Meyer bowled nicely, Natalie Prout bowled two good overs on her debut and Megan Gibbs bowled somebody for the first time! 

Devki Shah once again bowled very tidily as did the ever reliable Emma Dangefield and Geethika Ayomi. Fran Fell showed that she is a true all rounder by picking up a wicket and bowling the only maiden over of the match!

Piumi Bandara did well as wicket keeper, taking the gloves for the first time in the absence of Alanka and a now customary direct hit run out from Mel Rivera Caceres was a highlight!

A couple of purple patches where we took wickets close together meant that we finished with 8 wickets and Gunns never looked like threatening our total. More important was that everybody got to bat and bowl and get more experience of doing so in a match situation. 

Gunnersbury were very generous and welcoming hosts, their 1st XI had played a match before ours and a number of those players stayed around to support (and umpire). There was a lovely friendly atmosphere to the game and we hope to arrange a return friendly at The Walker Ground later in the year. 

Max Joseph

SMASH Festival

This Sunday Southgate’s women’s team took part in an 8-a-side tournament hosted by Shepherds Bush CC, with Kew CC and South Hampstead CC also competing. 

Match 1 - 12 overs

Kew CC 50/2
Net Score 40

Southgate CC 66/4 
Net Score 46

Southgate fielded first and bowled well as a unit with minimal wides and boundaries for the opposition. The fielding was strong throughout our innings, but Kew accumulated steadily with singles and only lost two wickets to set a respectable but achievable target of 40. Mel Rivera Caceres was involved with both wickets, taking a sharp catch and executing a runout brilliantly. 

Southgate’s batters demonstrated much cleaner hitting than their opposition - the highlight came when Emma Dangerfield slapped a 6 over the cover boundary! Assisted by more extras than we had given Kew, we were always on track for victory. 4 wickets falling meant a more nervy finish than was strictly necessary, but Southgate won their first game by 6 runs. 

Match 2 - 12 overs

Southgate CC 83-1
Net Score 78

Shepherds Bush 72-4
Net Score 52

Shepherds Bush had comfortably beaten South Hampstead on the adjacent pitch during our first match. We therefore knew that they were likely to pose a potent threat, but that victory would put us in pole position to win the tournament. 

Batting first, Emma Dangerfield and Alanka Goonawardena accumulated steadily, adding 14 without losing a wicket in their 3 overs. Soph Meyer and Mel Rivera Caceres each struck a boundary during their partnership and also went undismissed. Megan Gibbs’ clean hitting drove her partnership with Piumi Bandara to 20, before a wicket fell on their final ball, which turned out to be the only wicket we lost all innings. The final combination of Geethika Ayomi’s brutal hitting and Yolanda Mackie’s crafty scoops and reverse sweeps saw Southgate post an imposing net total of 78.

Alanka and Emma opened the bowling in tandem and gave Shepherds Bush’s first pair nothing to work with. So much so that at the 3 over change, Shepherds Bush’s score was -3, meaning anything other than a Southgate victory looked extremely unlikely. Shepherds Bush never recovered and great run outs by Soph and Alanka (both off their own bowling), followed by Geethika clean bowling one of Bush’s final pair saw us to a commanding 26 run victory. 

Match 3 - 12 overs

Southgate 65-2
Net Score 55

South Hampstead 70-7
Net Score 35

Southgate batted first hoping to repeat the blueprint of the previous match, but a strong start and finish to the innings bookended a trickier patch. Frustrations in this period lead to a calamitous runout and the team will have learned not to panic when things aren’t going their way. A net score of 55 was by no means a disaster, but we were aware that we would need to bowl and field well, and retain our composure if we were to win the match and the whole tournament. 

Fortunately that is exactly what we did! Emma and Alanka again bowled with great control at the start of the innings, the latter taking a good return catch to take the wind out of the South Hampstead sails. Piumi bowled well in the middle overs and great direct hit runouts from both Soph and Mel gave Southgate breathing room. South Hampstead’s final pair were talented young cricketers, but when one of them slapped her first ball at Soph, who gleefully took the catch, the game was all but ours. Geethika again clean bowled someone with her penultimate ball to cap her contributions throughout the day. Yolanda and Soph colliding under a high catch briefly looked as though it might spoil our celebrations, but thankfully not too much harm was done and we were able to celebrate our victory as a team! 

Winning this tournament when we didn't have a women's team of any kind before August last year is an unbelievable achievement. Every player had great moments with bat, ball and in the field and we were comfortably the best team, the players should be extremely proud of themselves. 

Max Joseph

Southgate Women vs Stoke Newington Women

Stoke Newington 306
Southgate 289
16 over pairs match, scoring starts at 200

Southgate’s Women’s team continued their preseason preparations with a friendly match against Stoke Newington. Stokey have a more established women’s section that mainly plays hardball cricket and so only brought 6 of their less experienced players. With 10 Southgate players available, Soph Meyer and Piumi Bandara were leant to the visitors for the day so that we could play an 8-a-side match. 

An arranged toss saw Stoke Newington bat first (as one of their team arrived after the start time) and Southgate’s players bowled well, often without reward. Stoke Newington’s batters showed experience in dropping the ball into gaps and running well, accumulating runs even when our bowlers made hitting boundaries difficult. Each Southgate player bowled 2 overs and Devki Shah’s were particularly tight, going for only 3 runs. Geetika Rajapakse, standing in as captain in Emma Dangerfield’s absence, eventually picked up Southgate’s first wicket in the penultimate over of the innings, clean bowling one of Stokey’s final pair. 

Southgate’s batting is improving all of the time as evidenced by every player hitting at least one 4 during their innings! We’re still getting used to how high the softballs bounce on grass pitches and this caused shots to be popped up for easy catches on a couple of occasions. Alanka Goonawardena played well at the start of the innings, scoring 15 runs from 13 balls without being dismissed. Big hitting from final pair Geethika Rajapakse and Yolanda Mackie saw 44 runs added and at one stage they had Stokey nervously scrambling. 

However, a late wicket meant Southgate eventually finished 17 runs short of the total set by Stoke Newington, but we can take heart from the fact that we actually scored more runs than the opposition – 119 to Stokey’s 111 – we just also lost more wickets!

The Walker ground was again a marvelous place to be on Sunday afternoon and Stoke Newington were a very friendly outfit who we look forward to playing again in the near future. 

Max Joseph