Southgate 307 (122/3)
Enfield 281 (111/6)
16 over pairs match, scoring starts at 200
Southgate’s Women’s team began their league season this weekend with a victory away at Enfield. Captain Emma Dangerfield won the toss and chose to bat on a sweltering bank holiday Monday and our first batting pair of Alanka Goonawardena and Maddie Unthank combined perfectly. Alanka struck four boundaries and with her partner in full flow, Maddie pushed virtually every ball she faced into a gap and confidently called for a single.
Our next pair, Megan Gibbs and Mel Rivera Caceres were also very effective, adding 27 runs without the loss of a wicket in their 4 overs. Again, a combination of powerful boundary hitting from Megan and single accumulation from Mel was an impactful combination.
Pooja Patel and Soph Meyer rotated strike effectively to add a further 24 runs, again without loss, before Emma Dangerfield and Geethika Ayomi dispatched the final 4 overs for 39 runs for the loss of one wicket. Geethika's impressive striking of three 4s and a 6s will live long in the memory, but perhaps not as long as her dismissal; she swung so hard at the ball that her sunglasses fell off and dislodged a bail!
This final flourish took Southgate's net total to an imposing 307 from 16 overs.
Despite good bowling from Alanka and Maddie, Enfield got off to a strong reply with their first pair totting up 31 runs for just one wicket - a spectacular one handed catch from Soph! The home team’s next pair also began impressively and at one stage in the 7th over with their net score at 253, Enfield were in the driving seat. However, Megan and Mel each took a wicket in their second over, the former again caught by Soph and the latter clean bowled.
Pooja and Soph bowled well in tandem to wrestle momentum back to our side. Soph completed a catch off her own bowling for her third catch of the innings and Pooja didn’t bowl a single wide or no ball; she was one of only two players to achieve this across both teams. They were helped by Emma’s captaincy - having identified that Enfield were pairing a stronger player with a less experienced one - she changed fielding positions to try and ensure that the less dangerous player faced more deliveries.
Enfield’s final pair required 37 from their final pair’s 4 overs. Not an impossible task, but against Emma and Geethika’s bowling it seemed unlikely. This turned out to be the case with each picking up a wicket, Emma’s a 4th catch by Soph(!) and Geethika’s clean bowled. They also only conceded a miserly 20 runs.
In the end Southgate won by 26 runs, but the game was closer than that sounds. Enfield have a number of good players and will be a sterner test in future meetings when a few who were absent on Monday return. We had a team full of good players and that strength in depth was the difference between the two sides.
Max Joseph