Tag: Kathryn Bryce

A Humdinger in the Hundred

A look back at today’s Hundred (women’s) match between Manchester Originals and Trent Rockets, with special focus on the final ten balls. Also a photo gallery.

Today the Hundred has matches between Manchester Originals and Trent Rockets. The men’s match will be starting in a quarter of an hour. This post looks back at a the women’s match.

THE MANCHESTER ORIGINALS INNINGS

Manchester Originals have come in for considerable stick over the make up of their squad. They have an overload of opening batters – todays playing XI featured four regular openers (Emma Lamb and Eve Jones being the two to come in down the order). Today however Eve Jones went a long way to addressing such concerns with a fine innings from number 5. Originals skipper Sophie Ecclestone hit 13 off just five balls to give the total a late boost. Even so, a total of 137 didn’t look exactly mountainous.

THE FIRST 90 BALLS OF THE ROCKETS CHASE

The Rockets lost three wickets fairly early in the chase, but then Nat Sciver-Brunt and Ash Gardner settled into a stand that looked to be moving things in their favour. With ten balls to go in the chase Rockets needed 22 to win, with Sciver-Brunt and Gardner still in residence.

THE LAST 10 BALLS

Lauren Filer was given responsibility for bowling balls 91-95, and she did an excellent job. Even with her final ball going for four the equation was 13 needed off the last five balls. Filer had 2-26 in total from her 20 balls. Kathryn Bryce was given responsibility for bowling the last five balls of the match. Gardner hit the first two of these balls for four to reduce the ask to five runs off three balls, and that point it looked like Rockets had done the job. Gardner went for glory off the 98th ball but hit it too high and Beth Mooney was able to get round underneath it, which meant the ask was now five off two balls with a brand new batter to face the first of them. Heather Graham, the new batter, did the sensible thing and grabbed a single, bringing Sciver-Brunt with an undefeated half century to her name down on strike with the task of hitting a four to win the match. Sciver-Brunt whipped the final ball towards midwicket, but while the shot had power it lacked for placement, failing to located a big enough gap in the field and Rockets only managed two runs of the final ball, meaning that Originals had hung on to win by one run. Filer was named Player of the Match for her bowling, and deservedly so. Scorecard here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

This may look a bit like a boiled sweet, but it is actually what is known depending on your source either as a ‘jewel bug’ or a ‘metallic shield bug’.
An ultra close-up of one of these bugs.

Sister Act

A look back at yesterday’s finale to the Charlotte Edwards Cup, in which a pair of Scottish sisters played starring roles. Also a photo gallery.

Yesterday was Charlotte Edwards Cup Finals Day – both semi-finals and then the final all in a day. My focus for this post will be the final itself, which I will lead up to with brief mentions of the semi-finals.

THE SEMI-FINALS

In the first semi-final Blaze held Central Sparks to 140-9 in 20 overs and chased this target down with five wickets and two overs in hand, a comfortable victory. The second match, between South East Stars and Southern Vipers was a tighter affair – Stars scored 162-5 from their 20 overs, and Vipers fought hard but ended up five runs short, in a match that went to the last ball – a six off that delivery and Vipers would have been in the final.

THE FINAL

Blaze won the toss and decided to bowl. Going into this match Blaze had won all six of the matches in which they had chased this season, so Stars knew they had to put up a big total to have a chance. When the first over yielded 18 things were looking good for them. However although there were promising moments from most of the Stars batter they could not build on this excellent start – the tale of the innings was of batters getting going and then getting out before making a serious contribution. In the end they finished with 141-9, with Georgia Redmayne’s 25 the biggest single contribution. Heather Graham and Josie Groves took the principal bowling honours with three wickets each. Kathryn Bryce had 1-11 from three overs and took a catch, while Sarah Bryce had two stumpings, both off Groves.

Stars benefitted from a huge slice of luck early in the reply – a drive from Marie Kelly deflected off the bowler Farrant into the non-strikers end stumps with Tammy Beaumont out of her ground for a freak run out. Kelly herself was second out at 37, with Kathryn Bryce already going very well. Sarah Bryce joined her sister at the crease and the pair took the game right away from Stars. Kathryn Bryce, the leading run scorer of this season’s tournament, completed her fifth 50 of the competition off 35 balls, with Sarah Bryce playing a fine support role. The partnership was worth 79 when a fine delivery from Danielle Gregory beat Kathryn Bryce’s attempted reverse sweep and bowled her for 62 (45). Heather Graham joined Sarah Bryce, who now assumed control of proceedings. By the time the 19th over started the ask was down to 10. That proved not even enough to take it to the final over, as Stars skipper Bryony Smith decided to trust this over to Ryana McDonald-Gay who had gone for 19 in her only previous over. Sarah Bryce emulated her sister’s feat of reaching 50, but ironically the winning hit was made by Graham, with a four. Sarah Bryce ended with 52 not out off 46 balls. Kathryn Bryce’s all round performance saw her named Player of the Match. The Bryce sisters incidentally are Scottish, and are separated by two years, Kathryn being 26 and Sarah 24. Tilly Corteen-Coleman, a 16 year old left arm orthodox spinner, had the excellent figures of 4-0-24-0. Full scorecard here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

A new butterfly sighting – I spotted this red and black beauty while out and about an hour ago.