On a sweltering Sunday Southgate’s women’s team took part in another SMASH festival, this time hosted by Old Minchendeanians CC. They were very hospitable hosts and are keen to grow their newly formed women’s team who certainly have promise. We’ll look to arrange another friendly against them before the season is over.
Old Minchendeanians 196 (36/8)
Southgate 249 (59/2)
8 over pairs match, scoring starts at 200
Old Minch won the toss and decided to bat first. Fran Fell, deputising as captain, opened the bowling and her over yielded two wickets, one clean bowled, the other a neat runout from Megan Gibbs. Soph Meyer also took a wicket in her first over, leaving the home side at 16/3 after their opening pair’s two overs.
Megan Gibbs and Piumi Bandara bowled well in tandem, stifling the Old Minch batters with 5 dot balls and 4 dot balls respectively. Megan’s only blemish was a wide from which the batters tried to sneak an extra run, but alert fielding from the Southgate fielders instead completed a well executed run out.
Shikhaa Gupta, playing in her first match for SCC, took a wicket in her over and only conceded one run, before Alanka bowled an extremely tidy maiden over.
Soph returned to bowl the penultimate over and induced an aerial shot that was well pouched by Fran. Fran then closed out the innings with 2 more wickets – 3 in total from her 12 balls(!) – the first a fine return catch, the second a top edge collected calmly behind the stumps by Alanka. This late flurry meant that Southgate had actually restricted Old Minch to a net score of minus 4!
Megan and Mareeni Raymond, representing SCC for the first time outdoors following an unlucky run of injuries, began Southgate’s chase and accumulated patiently. A lusty blow from Megan brought 4 from their final ball and their pair’s net score to 10.
Shikhaa and Selena Kularatne, another debutant, again had to be patient and navigated their two overs without losing a wicket, which really was all that was needed in pursuit of a negative total.
Alanka and Puimi were next in and put the game beyond all doubt. Both played their role but Alanka was particularly effective, finding the boundary on 3 occasions.
Just as they had done in the first innings, Soph and Fran combined clinically in the final two overs. They added another 14 runs without loss to bring Southgate’s total to 59/2 and ensure a winning margin of 53 runs.
Southgate 259 (74/3)
Harefield 214 (24/2)
8 over pairs match, scoring starts at 200
Fran won the toss on her second attempt and chose to bat and Megan and Mareeni led the charge. They again had to be patient as some of the Harefield bowling was hard to hit because it was good, some was hard to hit because it was wide, but another 4 from their final ball took the total to 15 without loss, a very solid start.
Selena and Shikhaa showed good intent to rotate strike, each picking up singles, but also getting run out. I’m keen for aggressive running to be a key part of how we approach every match and an occasional run out is an inevitable consequence of this, so I don’t mind seeing that happen at all.
Alanka and Piumi again combined brilliantly, this time each striking two boundaries, piling on 21 runs in their two overs for the loss of just one wicket, a sharply taken catch by Harefield’s wicket keeper.
Fran and Soph were even more dominant. Their combination of hard hitting and decisive running ensured that they scored off every ball of their two overs. Soph sent the ball racing to the boundary in the first over before Fran hit a 4 and a 6 in the final stages to propel Southgate to 74/3, meaning Harefield required an imposing 60 runs to win.
Fran, Soph, Megan and Piumi bowled the first four overs and gave the Harefield batters little to work with. Megan was particularly miserly, producing 5 more dot balls and Piumi picked up the first wicket of the innings. Shikhaa continued the theme with a maiden over that also yielded a wicket as Alanka and Fran combined well to complete a run out. Selena, bowling her first over, looked dangerous and only went for 3 runs.
Alanka and Fran wrapped up the innings with 2 overs that only conceded 3 singles to ensure another huge winning margin, this time 45 runs.
I think MITC (Middlesex in the Community) organise these festival days to provide match experience for new women's teams in a friendly and welcoming environment. They’re a great initiative, but I think our performances in this one showed we're probably too strong for them already! It’s amazing how far we've come in under a year!
Max Joseph