Womens Trial match May 2011
Scotland Women’s Probables v Possibles
After the disappointment of last weekend’s wash-out Scotland’s top women cricketers repaired to rural Perthshire and the beautiful setting of Glenalmond College for the season’s first senior national event and an opportunity for Head Coach, Kari Anderson, to take a look at her growing squad of players ahead of a busy senior (and Under-17s) season.
She was not to be disappointed either! She said ‘This was a very useful exercise; the weather was kind to us too. I was delighted to see a couple of players who had returned after injury performing so well and the standard of the new-comers too. Yes very worth while.’
In a fixture new to the women’s calendar twenty two of the best women’s cricketers in Scotland were divided into two teams under the captaincy of former Scotland captain Fi Urquhart and veteran internationalist Kathryn White to play a thirty overs a side game. This was an opportunity to not only shine and catch the head coach’s eye but also, for many, for a first run out after a long winter of developing and further honing skills. The result was immaterial but for players used to a competitive environment there would be no let-up especially as squad places were at stake.
Batting first the Probables got off to the worst possible start as Ruth Willis was senselessly run out – without facing – in the first over from a sharp piece of fielding by Lynn Dickson but a needless run nevertheless. That this brought in the big-hitting Kathryn White was some consolation for the batting team against the miserly bowling of Olivia Rae. Whilst White was in belligerent mood as she struck two 6s and six 4s in her 58, she and Aslam, initially, and a succession of partners eschewed several opportunities to put pressure on the fielding side by rotating the strike against some fairly accurate early season bowling and less than impressive fielding.
Rae had been the pick of the early bowlers. She produced an excellent opening spell (she will bowl worse and pick-up a handful of wickets) in which she was unlucky not to send White back to the pavilion before she had got going and a number of quality deliveries. White’s belligerence kept the board ticking over and she rode the introduction of Anderson and Wilkinson into the attack for the middle overs with wickets tumbling at the other end. Anderson moved the ball effortlessly as Rae had done beating the bat on countless occasions but White’s severity ruined a naggingly accurate spell. At the other end Wilkinson’s guile and flight toyed with those uncomfortable against spin. White chanced her arm once too often against the off-spinner and spooned a simple catch to Urquhart. There was a brief cameo from Ellie Savage towards the end but White’s dismissal heralded the end of the end of an otherwise lacklustre innings.
In reply the Possibles opening pair Diane Pedgrift and Lynn Dickson started more slowly than the Probables openers had done, particularly against Aslam and White’s early frugal lines. Despite falling behind the overall rate early on nevertheless they were steady in punishing the bad ball, rotating the strike and setting-up a platform for the later batters. Pedgrift, back from injury, took to the game as if she had never been away and was particularly severe on the loose ball. Dickson, clearly out of form, batted sensibly in picking off singles and giving the strike back to her more belligerent and assured partner.
White, the pick of the Probables bowling, bowled out and finished with very credible figures of 6-3-10-0 but Pedgrift and Dickson had seen off the openers. The introduction of Fi Campbell’s leg breaks set the cat among the pigeons! She snapped-up both openers in the space of three overs; Pedgrift mistimed to White at mid on whilst Dickson was unlucky, in smashing a loose ball to the fence, to pick out the only leg side boundary rider, Chatterji.
At 72-4 after 20 overs the game was within the Probables grasp; all that was required was some tight bowling, the fielding to back it up and pressure induced loose shots from the batting team. The early departure of Urquhart and Wilkinson provided the latter but despite timely economy shown by Chatterji there was little of the other two and, besides, no one had counted on Olivia Rae’s arrival at the crease.
From her second ball, she coolly and intelligently manipulated the ball between fielders where gaps didn’t seem to exist and found the boundary with unerring consistency to put the pressure firmly back on the bowling team. They crumbled; three overs alone went for 30 and the target fell away. ‘Ollie’ finished on 47 not out; whilst she hit 6 classy boundaries the notable difference in her innings was the number of singles that were converted to 2s and twos converted to 3s!
Whilst the result was, indeed, immaterial the exercise was well worth it.
The senior team is next in action at Dumfries against Cumbria on 22nd May and the Under-17s, on the same day, play Perth and Kinross Under-13s in Perthshire again.
Result – Probables won by 5 wickets
