Ladies Collect First Win in 2021

Report courtesy of debut captain, Jessica Walton.

We won the toss and decided to field first. The opening bowlers Jess Pugh and Chloe Dack were very effective, with their pace making it difficult for the batters. After 4 overs, Rosie Digweed and Bethan Bailey bowled 4 overs each (interrupted by the changing of ends and the necessary hand-sanitising). Their bowling was marked by ‘oohs’ due to lots of near-misses. Following Rosie’s excellent maiden, Bethan started mopping up the batters with four wickets in two overs – finishing with figures of 4-8.

Thereafter, Sue Thornett and Ali Daniels bowled two good overs each, with one wicket for Sue and two for Ali resulting from some very accurate bowling. Jess and Chloe then came back on and we had four very eventful overs, with two run-outs. The comedy moment of the game occurred on the last ball of the innings, where a run-out chance was missed twice and resulted in Chloe nearly receiving a ball to the head. The excellent bowling throughout meant that Kelvedon ended on 68-9.

The second innings was slightly less eventful, although Kayleigh Bills and Chloe made a solid start – the latter getting 20. Rosie and I then did a good amount of running for our respective 14* and 11. We made it to 69 in just sixteen overs, which felt like a solid win.

The award for most commitment goes to Rosie, who was diving left, right and centre, and wanted every possible run going. All in all, it was a great game – especially for my first captaincy experience – and was only marred by the lack of teas (thanks coronavirus) and the near-constant stream of trains!