Women’s 1st XI Win T20 Group after resounding wins over Oxfordshire
Sunday’s double success against Oxfordshire saw the Women’s 1st XI secure top spot in the Tier 3 – Division 1 South group and qualify for finals day. In what unsurprisingly proved to be a very competitive group, going into the final day of the season, all was still to play for. Two defeats could have seen us get relegated but two wins and results going our way could see us top the group.
Game 1 saw Berkshire win the toss and elect to bowl first at Sulhamstead & Ufton CC. Oxfordshire came out hard and reached 39/1 after 5 overs. However, a wicket maiden from Emma MacEwen (3/25) in the final over of the powerplay left things honours even at the end of the first 6. The spinners through the middle all proved economical across their allocation and along with regular wickets kept the scoring rate in check. Some late innings runs lifted Oxfordshire from 88/7 to finish on 131/8.
The run chase got off to a challenging start with Fiza Asif Iqbal caught behind off the last ball of the first over. However, Berkshire then produced a dominant display with the bat to secure a 9-wicket win, chasing the score in 15 overs with an unbroken 128* run partnership between Alex Avoth (60 off 41) and Finty Trussler (59 off 49). This secured our first bonus point win of the day. Elsewhere, the first result also went our way, with at the start of the day 3rd placed Devon winning against group leaders Wiltshire. This left the group standings very tight going into the final matches as 1st – Berkshire (14pts), 2nd – Wiltshire (13pts) and 3rd – Devon (12pts).
Game 2 saw Berkshire win the toss for a 2nd time of the day and this time opted to bat first to continue the momentum with the bat. The innings got off to a better start this time with 15 runs coming in the first over. The batters continued to go hard and finished the powerplay 62/0. Fiza was the first wicket to fall in the 8th over having made 28 (24b). Alex then brought up her 2nd half century of the day with a 6 before departing next ball for 50 (24b). A fine display of ball striking which included 4 maximums. This left Finty (67 off 41) and Izzy Storrar (15) at the crease who put together a 53-run partnership for the 3rd wicket. Having taken the final 3 overs for 37, Berkshire posted 179/5.
In defence of the total, Berkshire were able to pick up 3 wickets in the powerplay Freya Johnson (2/21) removed the openers while Shayna Chikhlia (3/22) picked up 3 wickets to leave Oxfordshire 52/5 after 9 overs. Having moved to 111/7, Molly Bulteel returned to the attack to pick up two wickets to finish with 2/9 from her 3 overs. Lily Bowlby (2/20) then claimed her 2nd wicket of the innings to dismiss Oxfordshire for 119. This result secured another bonus point win.
This meant Berkshire finished the group with 4 wins and 2 losses. Importantly 3 of the 4 wins were bonus point wins which allowed us to finish two points clear of Devon who also won 4 games. Finty Trussler passed 50 runs in all 4 appearances she made to finish as the leading run scorer in the division making 271 runs @ 135.5 with a strike rate of 136. Alex Avoth finished third place having also only played 4 out of 6 games. Alex passed 50 three times scoring 171 runs @ 57 striking at 148. On the bowling front, Shayna finished as the leading wicket taker picking up 9 wickets while Lily Bowlby finished 5th with 6 wickets and Freya Johnson 7th with 5 wickets.
In the North group, Staffordshire claimed the top spot and will be our opponent on finals day. Finals Day is set to take place on Sunday 28th June at Arundel Castle.
Devon are this week’s visitors in a re-run of last year’s 50 over final to kick off the Metro Bank One Day Cup this Sunday.
Match Preview
Having secured top spot in the Tier 3 T20s, our attentions now turn to our title defence in the 50 over format. Up first is a visit from Devon who were last year’s runners up in the One Day Cup having finished as group winners. The two sides have already met this season with Berkshire securing two wins on the opening day of the T20 season. However, since then Devon have gone on to win all 4 of their remaining Tier 3 T20 matches. A new venue to our fixture calendar has also been added this year as Datchet CC will host the fixture.