The Writing's On The Wall!

Read it and Weep Ipswich
One year ago I made my maiden Captain’s speech at the end of season dinner and boldly claimed that the NCI Ladies team would finish in the top three in the Two Counties League in their first competitive season. There were many who scoffed and smirked at my big ideas but I will stand up on 26th October at this season’s dinner and proudly say “WE DID IT!”

It’s been a long season; our first cancelled game was 5th May and our first win was 6th May. We’ve been frustrated by many other cancellations due to weather or non-existent opposition. But we have played a fantastic number of 27 games (compared to 5 last year) and experienced some brilliant cricket culminating in a very exciting close finish. 30 women and girls have participated in these games with a few more coming along to training and field sessions. What a long way we have come for a squad that is just 2 years old. So well done to everyone who has played a part on or off the field.

Cambridge NCI - Nine Runs Short
The drama began earlier in the week with a dispute over the start time for the match. My opening shot was a request to start the game 30 minutes late at 2pm as several of my players were away on holiday and I was concerned about them being late. (Economically true.) The fact was I knew that Paula and Caroline were at a christening and could only get to the game in time if we had a 2pm kick off. I knew I was already short of several key players due to other commitments or injury so I made a play to squeeze P&C in if I could. The Ipswich Captain wouldn't play ball and counter attacked with the announcement that the game should be starting at 1pm anyway. I got out the rule handbook which clearly states 1.30pm start for Sept and she grudgingly went away to consult her team. She left me a message later in the week to say "no go", it would be too dark to play 60 overs if we started later than 1pm and the umpire had confirmed the start time as well. In other words TUFF!

So I took it up with the league secretary and asked her to clarify. She acknowledged the start time was 1.30pm in the hand book (although it did say 1pm on the umpire's sheet) and that the claim of bad light was "rubbish!" So she spoke to Ipswich and cracked the whip so that when I phoned the Captain again she rolled over. It still meant we would be without Paula and Caroline but I felt a moral victory had been won by Cambridge and it was a clear statement that we would not be pushed around. On or off the pitch!

Won The Toss Again!
(I have actually won 75% of tosses this season. How's that for proof of PMA?) So I put them in to bat. It's been our winning strategy all season and I knew we had a strong fielding team. I was still aiming to win the league but knew we would need to bowl them out and keep the runs to less than 80 to do it. It was a big ask and despite some great bowling efforts we lacked another in form bowler to really peg them back. Louise did her job in conceding only 7 runs off 6 overs with 3 maidens. Lois found her form again but likewise wickets eluded her. Sam did get a breakthrough when the opening bat played on to her stumps. Jan also took the wicket of the other opener, bowling her best performance of the season. Well done to Tiff, Ivy and Kate who courageously stepped up in the final overs despite not having been around recently or being quite new to it. I admire you for having a go and I am sure that is was nerve wracking to be in at the tense finish. Our specialist fielders deserve a big up - Natasha, Kate, Ivy, Tiff and Liz made some awesome stops and stunning throws that really deterred Ipswich from taking that second run on most occasions. It saved us loads of runs - top effort y'all. Safe hands Benton was there behind the wicket consistent as ever. Ipswich scored 129 runs for the loss of 2 wickets. Which meant we were never going to win the league even if we won the game from here.

Batting to Win the Game
Had we achieved our goal in the first innings we would have still had a tough job to win the league. We would have needed to score the runs required without losing more than 3 wickets. But that game was up so the batting order was designed to score the runs without losing 10 wickets. We had recently experienced a disastrous game against Hunts where we lost 9 wickets in 9 overs and I was pretty keen not to repeat that scenario. So I aimed for a balance of Big Hitters who can score runs but may not last long and Steady Eddies who dig in and keep adding to the runs. Louise got us off to a good start, breaking her bat to get 4 boundaries, but then was caught on 24 after 10 overs. Tiff was a great opening support and I came in to find myself facing the Ipswich Captain who proceeded to bowl a very eratic 3 overs with 9 wides. Very frustrating when you are dying to wallop it. Still they had their chances as I skyed a ball but they failed to catch it, Natasha ran me out but they fluffed the throw into the wicket and goodness knows how many catches behind they nearly had. So I survived to the end with 29 not out and a personal best for a league game this season. Ivy and Natasha gave it their all and added to the total before being bowled. Jan produced a very impressive 20 runs leaving just one over for Liz to preserve her average with 4 not out.

In the end 120 runs wasn't enough to win the game but it was our best performance this season without players like Paula, Caroline, Emily, Lucy, Gen or Labieba to help us out. I can assure you everyone who came out to that crease tried their best. The choccies went to Jan for a brilliant all round effort in batting and bowling - our final Woman of the Match for 2007. Big thanks to Sam for being helpful and positive on the sidelines by keeping the scoreboard current because we were watching it and knew exactly what run rate we needed. If you thought it was agonising on the sidelines you can't imagine what it was like to be out there.

So our arch rivals Ipswich have survived this season unbeaten at the top of the league but the writing is on the wall. Last year when we played them we were 64 all out with only 19 runs coming off the bat and the rest were extras. They scored 137. Well clearly their bowling has improved as they gave away fewer extras this season but their batting hasn’t changed much. We have closed the gap massively so they must know that next year if we continue to improve at this rate we are going to blow them out of the water. Something to look forward to - eh girls ?