Women’s 1st XI progression in Round 1 of Cricket’s FA Cup and earn a home tie against Tier 2 side Glamorgan
Sunday 26th April saw the Women’s 1st XI make the short trip to Marlborough Cricket Club in Wiltshire to compete for a place in Round 2 of the Women’s T20 County Cup. Berkshire lost the toss and were asked to bat first. Despite an early wicket Berkshire were able to progress to 51/2 after 7 overs through some powerful ball striking from Alex Avoth’s 35 (28b) which included 4x 4s & 2x 6s. However, some challenges through the middle of the innings saw Berkshire fall to a difficult position of 77/7 in the 14th over. At which point no. 8 Naaz Asif Iqbal (18) & no. 9 Mary Briscoe (26*) were at the crease. The pair went on to add 48 runs off the final 33 balls of the innings. This allowed Berkshire to post 125/8 which given the strength of our bowling attack was a very competitive score.
Following her exploits with the bat Naaz then opened the bowling with her off spin and returned remarkable figures of 4-1-9-1 which included 3 overs in the powerplay. The seamers maintained the pressure at the other end in the powerplay leaving Wiltshire 18/2 after 6. After the powerplay there was no let up from the bowling attack with more spin in the form of Shayna Chikhlia and Lily Bowlby (1/16) both introduced. Shayna went for only 5 runs off her 3 overs. The pace of Molly Bulteel accounted for the Wiltshire captain following a top edged short ball which left Wiltshire 37/6. Some late order runs from the Wiltshire lower order lifted them to finish on 87/7 (20). This secured Berkshire a 38 run win and a 2ndround tie at home to Glamorgan on Sunday 17th May @ Wokingham CC.
Head Coach Tom Jackson said “With the bowling options available to us any score of more than a run a ball was always going to be a tough test on a wicket that was offering a lot for the spinners. Our bowlers were relentless in how they went about executing their skills and our fielders backed up our bowling brilliantly which included an exceptional catch from Mary Briscoe.”
Following the competition game, we played a 2nd T20 to get some more early season cricket in. Berkshire won the toss and elected to bat first again. The innings got off to a tough start with 3 quick wickets leaving us 3/9. After a rebuild through the middle, Noa Mais’ 28 (21b) and Lily’s 22 (16b) provide some impetus to push the score to 107/8 at the end of 20 overs.
Freya Johnson (2/19) struck twice in quick succession in the powerplay to get the defence of our total off to a good start. Emily Wilson also picked up her first two wickets for the county with her left arm seam in the final over of the powerplay. After a bit of a rebuild from Wiltshire’s 5th wicket partnership, Molly struck in the 10th over with the score 61/5. However, the return of Emily Wilson saw 3 wickets fall in the over including Wiltshire’s Grace Wetherall who made 51. This secured Emily a 5 wicket haul (5/10), but also a hat trick which was only realised after the fact!
The Women’s 1st XI are not in action this week but return against Wiltshire on the 10th May at Westbury & District CC for another set of T20s this time in Tier 3 league action.