Sunday saw another important step forward in developing our Women's & Girls cricket with the debut of our Women's 1st team in the Two Counties Ladies Development League.
Our opening fixture in the Central Division saw us host an experienced IES Ladies team in contrast to our own inexperienced team of primarily youth players with some added experience from captain Cora McCallum & vice-captain Nell Spencer who were returning and debuting at hardball level themselves.

Losing the toss and being asked to bowl allowed the team to put in an excellent bowling and fielding performance, but despite this IES posted 126 for 4 thanks mainly to 30* from IES opener Charlotte Jenner. It was great to see everyone contribute with opening bowler Kira Trimby taking the first wicket for the season with figures of 1 wkt for 17 runs from her 4 overs. Isla Webster also took 2 wickets with figures 2-35 from her 5 overs assisted by a fantastic catch low at point from Erin Trimby to dismiss IES batter Lucy Lawless for 20. During the middle of the innings Yoxford bowling tightly with Lara Fisher picking up her first senior wicket with a caught & bowled during a tidy 3 over spell. While spinners Erin Trimby (8 runs from 3 overs) and Sophia Spencer (11 runs from 2 overs) were both economical and threatening during their spells.

Yoxford's inexperience was exposed more clearly in our batting performance as we fell well short of the target in the run chase.
The hectic innings was exactly what you'd expect from a team with so many youth players - with lots of shots, wickets and far to many run outs! Darcey McDonough survived one of these early runout chances in the first over before then going on to demonstrate her boundary hitting ability with three 4s and a 6 before another ill-judged resulted in her being run out for 27. Ruby Phillips also looked good at 3 playing several good shots before being cleaned bowled by Lucy Lawless who capped a fine all round performance with 2 wickets for 9 runs with the rest of the wickets shared around the IES team.
With the early wickets and 3 run outs (including captain Cora McCallum without facing a ball) we were always going to be struggling to reach the IES target but we scored at an excellent rate to post a respectable 81 all out from just 14 overs with Nell Spencer being left undefeated on 5 not out.

This season will be one of development for this new team. But the signs are good that they can compete at this level and quickly gain the experience and confidence to close the gap to established teams such as IES who took a deserved 45 run in their first visit to Grove Park.

Well done to all our players and thank you to our own supporters as well as the IES players, coaches and supporters for an excellent afternoon of cricket. Best of all the sun came out finally! ☀️

THANK YOU TO OUR WOMEN'S CRICKET SPONSORS
BROOKS ARCHITECTS LIMITED
http://www.brooksarchitects.com/
FOR THEIR SUPPORT FOR WOMEN & GIRLS CRICKET AT YOXFORD CRICKET CLUB