To summarise this season I think the most appropriate phrase is ‘peaked too early’. The newly formed Ashford Ladies started with a run of wins, peaking when we played away at the Mote, winning with only eight players! Unfortunately our winning streak was short lived and as the season went on we struggled to win matches.

This season we were playing in Division 3 of the Women’s Cricket Southern League. Out of the 13 matches we played, we won five of them. Unfortunately only three of these wins were in league matches, leaving us level bottom of Division 3. Not quite being able to hold on, next season we shall be playing in Division 4.

Throughout the season there were some good team and individual performances. A 49 run win against Horsham (a great season opener!) and wining by eight wickets against Guildford were some of the team highlights.

The outstanding performer of the year was Sharon Bisset. She averaged 61, with four scores over 50, and a best of 93 not out. She also headed the bowling averages, taking five wickets in one league match. Needless to say Sharon was our player of the season. For the rest of the batswomen it was a mixed season and we lacked consistency. The next highest average was 19.2, and only one other player managed to score a 50.

In the field our performance was a similar story. Alison McCreedy was a strong opening bowler all season with an economy rate of 3.2 from 100 overs. Gill Bonham took the highest number of wickets in the season. We missed consistent line and length bowlers from our attack and are looking to work on that over the winter.

A few juniors made their debuts for us, Bryony Smith, Kirsty Hull and Amber Cousens, and we look forward to them playing more next year. We also picked up a few new adult members from other clubs.

Overall this season we didn’t score enough runs, or bowl consistently well enough, but the fact that we played more than half our league matches with fewer than 11 players left too many gaps in the field, and was the main factor in our relegation. We are actively looking to recruit more players for next year.

With this being the first season for the majority of us as at Ashford, many thanks must go to everyone for making us feel so welcome. Special thanks must go to Chris Evans for his work organising the initial move, and help with everything from coaching to scoring once we arrived. Thanks also to Kevin Lambert for help with coaching, and Safdar Butt, Stevie Smith and Jas Rehncy for umpiring for us. And not forgetting our resident scorer and fine master Helen Cook.

As I look forward to next season, we have great potential to develop as a team. We have some great individual talent and I hope we can build on this so that this time next year I will be reporting a promotion.