For someone that doesn’t like batting in the powerplay overs, Laura Wolvaardt played a masterful innings of 91, not out, to help take Northern Superchargers what looked an improbable win after Deandra Dottin’s early fireworks. Headingly knows how to throw up a run-chase, and it did it in front of an enraptured home crowd. You are very rarely left wondering with Deandra Dottin. The big-hitting allrounder from Barbados has played some of the most devastating innings for West Indies in international cricket and domestic tournaments from the WBBL to the KSL and now the Hundred. It was a shock during the Commonwealth Games when she called time on her international career with West Indies while on the international stage with Barbados. Like Lizelle Lee, her Manchester Originals teammate’s disagreements behind the scenes with their national boards have been followed by shock retirements. However, both show today at Headingly that they still have something to offer the world of cricket. Lee hasn’t had the best run of form since she called it quits during South Africa’s tour earlier this summer, and it was only a matter of time before the ball would disappear from her bat with regularity. 40 from 27 balls was her reward, and with northern pride at stake in the cross Pennines affair, it was important for the visitors to get off to a good start. It allowed Dottin the sort of platform to launch and to score her second fifty of the tournament before she goes back to the Caribbean for the start of the 6ixty Dottin eclipsed her 67 against Welsh Fire with the second fastest fifty since the beginning of the Hundred bring up the milestone in just 25 balls. Dottin finished unbeaten on 68 from just thirty balls and was supported by Sophie Ecclestone, who wasn’t hanging about with 24 from 17, as they motored towards the end to finish on 160 for three. The West Indies allrounder’s innings contained five fours and six sixes, most of which were no match for a more significant boundary, let alone the tiny offering Headingly is a ground where chasing down a tricky target is manageable. However, it would rely on the Superchargers’ batting to finally fire; their batters had only contributed two fifties this season. With one of the Jemimah Rodriges out with a hand injury that blighted her Commonwealth Games, it would fall on the experience of Alyssa Healy and Laura Wolvaardt to contribute more. Wolvaardt had made it known that she doesn’t enjoy batting in the powerplay overs. So today, she was moved up the order and to devastating effect. Of course, it helped that Healy kept nothing in the locker and, like her Originals counterparts, made the most of the powerplay and hit six fours. Wolvaardt said after the game, “The whole time, we were ahead of their score. So it kept feeling like we were going well, but we still needed a lot of runs into the end, which just shows how incredible she (Dottin) got it there. And the positive sixes all over, so it’s hard to picture me hitting sixes like her, so I just tried to; I had to go about in my way a bit.” It was unfamiliar territory for Wolvaardt, who admitted, “Yeah, I was a bit nervous about it. I think in my international cricket, I don’t have the best record opening a betting. So a couple of years have passed since I last opened. So I was a bit nervous going back up top again but glad that it paid off and that I was able to get off to a good start in the powerplay because that’s normally where I stress a bit if I don’t get off to a good start, so I just kept going with the momentum.” That momentum paid off indeed, and Wolvaardt took advantage along with Heather Graham; in the end, the nerves were clearly with the Originals, and the usually steady Dottin could not bowl Originals to a victory that for so long had looked inevitable.
