Last week I went on a watercolour painting course at Boscombe near Bournemouth. There was a lot cloudy skies for us to paint but it was quite cool and windy most of the time.
Bournemouth Pier
Christchurch
A highlight for me has been to watch the England Womens Cricket team playing in the Quadrangular Tournament. This was a series of T20 matches where England were playing sides from Australia, New Zealand and India. Basically the top four cricketing nations in womens cricket. All four matches were televised on Sky and as I was not able to attend the matches in person, watching on tv kind of made up for it.
So after playing each team in turn and winning them all, England were playing Australia in the final of the T20 competition. The girls did well and won the final making four games played and four games won. That it is why it is so enjoyable to watch the womens cricket. The team led by Charlotte Edwards have excellent skills and are the best in the world. Attending games is good too as you can move around the ground and try different stands during the match without the claustrophobic effect that you get at a mens game.
This week I had the free time to be able to go some of the games in the followup 50 overs One Day Internationals (ODI’s). Having already beaten India and New Zealand, England were playing Australia at Lords on Tuesday 5th July.
Warming up
England won the toss and chose to bat first however they got off to a poor start losing the first four wickets cheaply to a very focused Australian side. England were all out for 168 without managing to bat for the entire 50 overs. Australia came in and put on an impressive display of batting to win fairly comprehensively.
Oh dear, I had gone through the usual procedure of being forced to stand up on my train journeys in sardine like fashion (especially on the tube) only to witness a demoralising defeat. So that was now a setback resulting in only six wins out of seven games.
Time for the England girls to take stock and prepare for the final ODI against Australia again, with the match taking place at Wormsley.
The weather was not looking good as I drove along the M40 towards the Paul Getty estate and the picturesque Wormsley ground. The rain was falling fast and the forecast was for showers and cool temperatures.
I had never been to Wormsley before and found it to be a lovely setting. Shame about the constant strong and cold wind. However the rain stopped and the sun even shined on a few occasions.
Wormsley Pavilion
This time Jodie Fields the Australian skipper won the toss and put England in to bat.
Charlotte Edwards leads the way
Charlotte Edwards and Danni Wyatt came out bat. Danni is fairly new to the team and is obviously skilled with both the bat and ball. England seem to use her as a bit of a wild card to upset the expected batting lineup or throw up some surprises in the bowling.
As you can see from the scorecard, the team members that batted managed to put together a score of 230 from fifty overs of what would seem to be a bowlers wicket. There were standout performances from Charlotte Edwards, Claire Taylor, Lydia Greenway, Sarah Taylor and Arran Brindle.
Spectators
I bet the skipper Charlotte Edwards was happy with getting 230 on the board.
After lunch it was time for England to be in the field and the Aussie girls to try to chase the 231 score.
England take to the field
It was tense as the innings progressed. The rain held off and Brunt got England off to a great start with Australia being 1 run for 2 wickets within the first over.
Nitschke and Blackwell began to pile on the runs for Australia until Nitschke was bowled for 15 by an impressive Brunt. Soon the new batsman Cameron and Blackwell were building up the runs again and they were gaining momentum when Isa Guha broke the trend at a crucial point by clean bowling Blackwell. Cameron had various partners at the other end while she went on to get the highest individual score of the match at 75 when she was out caught in the deep by Guha after a special delivery from Brunt.
Later when Fields came on to bat it still looked the match could go either way. Persistance, strong team spirit and good fielding paid off for the English girls resulting in the Australians being bowled out for 196 after 47.2 overs.
Final score
It was a great result for the England team and they won the NatWest trophy for the ODI’s to add to their T20 trophy.
The Australian batting scorecard is
The presentations took place, the champagne was sprayed and the tournament was over.
After the match two players announced their retirement from international cricket. So after major contributions over the years to their national teams both Shelly Nitschke of Australia and Claire Taylor of England will no longer be representing their countries in cricket.
I had enjoyed the match despite the cool weather. I had managed to stave off the worst of the wind by wearing a replica team shirt, covered by a sweatshirt, covered by a fleece jacket, covered by a waterproof anorak with a hood. This combined with a cap and a golf umbrella blocking out the gale meant that I did not get too cold. Oh to get back to watching cricket at the North Sydney oval or SCG in sunny, warm conditions.
Peewit
No comments:
Post a Comment