On a chilly afternoon, all of the Form 5 girls travelled down to Newfield to take on a Loretto team which comprised of a mixture of girls from P5 to P7. The match was played in great spirits with all of the girls learning as they went along - for some, this was their first cricket match. Loretto batted first and our opening bowler Polly delivered a terrific first ball of the innings to set the tone of how we were going to approach the game. There were lots of other strong bowling performances from the team with Esme, Agus and Georgia being particularly straight and pacey! However, Thandie was the pick of the bowlers for her 2 wickets in 6 deliveries!
Our fielding in the outfield was a little static at times: we must remember to 'walk in' when the bowler is approaching the crease so we can be on our toes and ready should the ball come to us. That said, Emilie, Anastasia and Katherine were all lively in the field saving runs by darting around the pitch to pick up the ball as quick as they could. The highlight of our fielding was Isabelle's outstanding run out from mid-wicket: the ball came straight to her and she picked it up, instinctively throwing it at the bowler's end when the batter was trying to get a quick single and it smashed into the stumps! Our fielding and bowling was so strong that we limited the home side to 37 runs after 10 overs.
As we had 14 players, the batting organisation took a little more work than just rotating the fielders during the first half of the game. The girls were grouped into one pair and four trios with everyone getting a chance to bat for at least 8 balls each. The opening pair of Thandie and Agus scored over 20 runs with both players hitting some wonderful boundaries. This got us on the front foot and Georgia, Eleora and Isobel RD also scored a nice boundary each. We did lose a couple of early wickets - one being a very unlucky run out - but once we got our noses in front on the scoreboard, Jed batted very sensibly with Charlotte at the end, by not taking any chances to get quick singles that we didn't need and this allowed us to hold onto the lead and secure the narrow win by just 9 runs.
A lovely thing about taking a girls' team is watching them as a group, decide who the opposite player of the match is. After a little huddle and a chat, they go up and shake their chosen player's hand to inform them they have been voted and congratulate them. We picked out Loretto's best bowler and our opponents picked out our best runner between the wickets which was Minty! Well done, Minty!
Whilst this was our first match of the 2024 season, I was very impressed with how much the girls have already learned about cricket in the first two weeks of term. They are now picking up the names of positions; which side is the leg side and which is the off side; how to back up both in the field and when batting (although the latter requires a little more work) and that you have to be really loud when calling for runs. It is early days but the girls are really enthusiastic and played the game today in the most wonderful spirit - another key element to the game of cricket. Well done, girls!
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