Ashford Ladies vs Leeds & Broomfield Ladies

Women’s Cricket Southern League Division 2

Ashford 173-4 (Jenny Tippell 43*, Michelle Kerr 8-1-30-1)
Leeds & Broomfield 145-4 (Michelle Kerr 38, Jenny Tippell 8-3-11-1)

Ashford batted first on a cold, cloudy day, and made a steady start. After seeing off the opening bowlers, Gill Bonham and Becky Halls increased the pace, and the run rate had climbed to almost 4 an over when Halls fell with the score on 65. Katie Butler was going well when a very sharp catch behind the stumps by Sarah Legg ended her innings, and Ali McCreedy was next to go, run out by a fine pick up and direct hit. Jenny Tippell carried on her form with the bat, hitting an unbeaten 43 from only 48 balls, and with Angharad Purser they pushed the score up to 173, adding 65 together.

The drizzle which had started during the Ashford innings continued as Leeds began their reply. Hannah Merchant made the first breakthrough for Ashford with the score on only 11, but Rebecca Johnson and Michelle Kerr began to rebuild, and had added 65 together before Johnson unluckily lost her balance playing a shot, and hit her wicket. All the Ashford bowlers kept it tight, backed up by good fielding, especially from Beth Evans and Sarah Taylor, and Leeds fell further and further behind the asking rate. Kerr fell to Yolandi Maynier with the score on 90, and although the middle order ran well between the wickets and took every run on offer, they could not find the boundaries that they needed to close in on the Ashford target.

A well deserved win for Ashford, marred only by a nasty looking finger injury to ‘keeper Nazia Sadiq a couple of overs from the end.

Alison McCreedy