The girls made the relatively short trip to Cuckfield on Sunday morning. Batting first, a new opening partnership of Millie Gwynn and Laura Cooper started proceedings and after a tight first over, Millie was quickly into her stride, smashing a couple of loose deliveries to the boundary. She followed this up with three more fours in the final over of this pairing as the girls put on 26 in three overs with just the loss of one wicket, an unfortunate run out. Millie finished on 21 and batted as she has been threatening to for some time, playing some excellent cricket shots and backed up well by Laura whose role shouldn’t be underestimated as she ran well between the wickets and gave Millie great support! Paige Gwynn and Millie Wickwar were next at the crease and faced some useful bowling but despite the run rate slowing we didn’t concede any wickets as the girls ran carefully and played very sensibly. Sophie Plimmer and Lydia Preston were next in and Lydia was quickly into her stride, flicking away a full ball away to the square leg boundary and then angling an over-pitched delivery away for another four. We lost a wicket to a careless run out before calmness returned and the girls batted out their remaining overs without further drama. Molly Hepburn and the heroic Poppy Husbands, who had arrived straight from a game of football to be our eighth player, then saw us through the remaining overs with some great running between the wickets and a cracking four from Poppy, who was also received a great delivery that gained Cuckfield their third wicket. We closed on 284-3 from our 12 overs.
A quick turnaround saw Lydia open the bowling with Millie G taking the second over. A couple of boundaries saw Cuckfield off to a good start before Molly applied the brakes with a very tidy over. Paige followed suit with another good over, going for just 2 runs as we looked to apply some pressure. Poppy bowled well without luck as did Millie W and at the halfway stage Cuckfield were 237 without loss. Sophie and Laura both contributed good overs before Paige finally grabbed our first wicket thanks to a very sharp catch from Sophie behind the stumps. Molly bowled another tight over before Lydia picked up a wicket with a pacy delivery. Molly then showed the value of backing up to claim a run out from the final ball of the eleventh over. Millie finished things off with a wicket off the last ball of the game, a high catch excellently held by Lydia at point. Cuckfield finished on a very well made 270 for 4 wickets to end a very good game despite the weather (again!).
Well done to the girls on an improved performance, the batting was much better and the the bowlers did well on a sloping pitch. The fielding continues to be a bit hit and miss and will need some attention in training! Thanks to Jez for scoring and Dougie for also having a go at scoring and as ever, thank you to all who came to support the girls. We will get some sunshine soon!!