Was great to see the girls in a good mood ahead of the game despite the heat and I’m sure the opposition didn’t know what to make of the girls belting out ‘Happy Birthday’ for Grace ahead of her birthday on Wednesday this week.

Grace took this love from the team into the toss and won it. She bravely chose to bowl first whilst there was little shade on the pitch. The girls took to the field with Katherine as wicketkeeper and Izzy to open the bowling.

The girls bowled extremely tightly throughout with runs hard to come by for Thatcham with only the last pair managing to get any sort of momentum going and they ended on 261 from 16 overs.

Wickets were also hard to come by with multiple edges and the wickets being missing by the smallest of margins, much to Millie and Amelia’s frustration.

2 wickets were taken (both by clean bowled by Grace), Mya bowled a great maiden over and Abigail in her first hard ball game bowled 2 very good overs and was very close to taking a wicket. Fielding was good throughout and a great wicketkeeping performance from Katherine kept the byes to a minimum.

The girls batting innings didn’t start as planned with 2 wickets in the first over as Thatcham bowled accurately at the stumps. Grace then batted strongly to pull it back and along with Abigail the first pair ended in a positive position.

Millie and Izzy were the next pair in and despite losing 2 wickets ran really well and took advantage of byes and wides to move us to 233 at the halfway stage.

Mya and Maggie started slowly but ran aggressively to keep the scoreboard moving and the game turned in our favour when Mya hit three magnificent 4’s in a single over, putting her new bat to good use and swinging the momentum in our favour.

We had overtaken Thatcham as the last pair Amelia and Katherine came in and when a ball kept low to bowl Amelia the game was back in the balance with the 2 best Thatcham bowlers still to bowl.

The girls kept calm, defended the straight ball well and when Amelia crashed the final ball of the 15th over for 4 the girls had opened up a 20 run lead going into the final over.

Again both girls defended brilliantly and they batted out the last over to secure a 23 run win against a strong Thatcham bowling line up.

Despite losing 5 more wickets the impressive running between the wickets, strong batting from Grace and Mya in particular and tight bowling from everyone ensured the girls maintained the current winning streak. Well done to Grace for captaining the team and all the girls for keeping going in the heat.

Thatcham chose Grace as best bowler and Mya as best batsman.

Match Report - Ross Pennock