Grace won the toss and elected to field in our pairs match.

Maggie opened our bowling with accurate bowling at the wicket restricting the boys to singles. Rose hit the wicket first ball but the U11 had just made his ground. Izzy and Grace attacked next with the boys hitting some well placed fours. The boys were on 226-0 after the opening 4 overs and the opening pair retired for no loss.

Alexa took on the next pair and we were accurate but the wicket was eluding us! We needed a breakthrough. Could Mya in next swing it? Rose hit the stumps again on another run out attempt but to no joy, as once again the batter had made the crease. Rose took matters into her own hands getting the first wicket in her last ball of her over. Breakthrough! Next over Els at silly mid on had a direct hit from Jemima’s bowling. We were on a roll! The girls were feeling buoyant and Florence took a clean bowled next over! 3 wickets in 9 balls!

241-3

Last ball of Maggie’s over brought about our 4th direct hit which was followed by one from Jemima next over but the boys had clearly worked on grounding their bats. Our fielding was certainly keeping the boys on their toes; now we needed to get more wickets.

Captain Grace came back into the attack with a near caught and bowled before we missed the stumps from a metre for a certain run out! It felt like luck was not on our side as the first few drops of rain hit.

We swapped Katherine for Alexa behind the stumps and Els roared back into attack with a big LBW shout second ball.

276-3

A huge mix up between the batters and Alexa got our next run out of May’s bowling. The pair combined again as Alexa held onto the thinnest edge and it was 2 wickets in an over for Mya. 276-5

The boys were pushing singles into doubles as we approached the last few overs. Balls were dropping agonisingly short of our fielding positions despite the efforts of our fielders.

As the sun peeked through Izzy came on for our final over. The boys were looking to run everything and we were giving away extras as our tight fielding deserted us.

Final target was 310, meaning the boys had scored 110-5 off 20 overs.

Grace and Rose opened with a 4 from Grace's first ball to set the tone. A single from both before Grace found the boundary again, 10 off the first over. Tighter bowling next over was followed by Grace smashing a huge 6 to long leg! The pair retired after contributing 33 towards our target - solid work girls!

Izzy and Florence were the next pair to the crease for their allotted four overs. The pair batted sensibly, running singles and doubles before a straight one that stayed low took Florence’s wicket.

Alexa and Mya were our following pair with an eventful first over! A run out due to non grounding and then Mya was caught, but fortunately it was a no ball and we had a reprieve. Their second over continued the drama as the bails were taken off first ball and then the third. Alexa flashed a four off the next ball. At the halfway point we were 245-4 vs 253-3 - it was looking close! Mya upped the ante with two successive 4’s to the boundary at fine leg (were her and Grace aiming for the coach and scorers?) That over had helped us in our chase but we still needed to punish anything wide. A skied shot was dropped and they nearly made amends with a direct hit but Mya was adjudged to be just in.

Els and Maggie were in and as they were settling in a mistimed shot resulted in another wicket. A beautiful 4 from Maggie was followed by a swipe and miss on another straight ball. Net practice on Friday had been about straight balls but we just weren’t applying it in game situations and not just this week. The boys had their best spell against this pair taking 3 wickets in four overs.

Katherine and Jemima were sent in with the instruction to have some fun and defend straight balls as the target now looked unreachable but we could still gain useful experience.

The pair were hitting well and running but our nemesis of a straight ball struck again!

Final score was 284-9, we had a good chat afterwards about basics which would have swung the match our way. The girls always take advice on board and are keen to improve-this may be the lesson we needed to collectively move forward.

We’ll dust ourselves off and go again.

Thanks to Charlotte for scoring and Will for umpiring.

Well done to the Falkland boys!

Best bowler: Mya
Best batter: Grace

Match Report - Matt Percy