The rain at Headingley may have reduced the Charlotte Edwards Cup game to 11
over per side, but it didn’t lose any of the drama. A heavy shower just as the players
were preparing for the match-up of Central Sparks, top of the table, against Northern
Diamonds, still looking for a win.
A captain’s knock from Eve Jones led the Sparks to their third win on the bounce in
dramatic fashion as her side won by three wickets off the last ball of a match that
could have gone either way.
Sparks won the toss and chose to bowl with the chances of the rain diminishing, and
it worked for them, having Lauren Winfield-Hill (5), Leah Dobson (0) and Hollie
Armitage dismissed in the first fourteen balls. Emily Arlott finished her two overs with
figures of two for ten, accounting for Dobson and Armitage.
When Katie George reduced the Diamonds to 23 for four in the fourth, bowling Bess
Heath (3), the Diamonds looked in trouble.
Sterre Kalis and Erin Burns, who was at Central Sparks last season, led a recovery.
Kalis faced most of the bowling, which wasn’t a problem as she scored freely, and
the pair ran well between the wickets. The boundaries were reasonably big, allowing
the batters to pick the gaps and run hard.
Burns, an experienced player, was starved of much of the strike after Heath
departed, and she faced only seven balls in the four overs.
In the search for quick runs, the Diamonds kept losing regular wickets; 59 for four
soon became 68 for eight in 19 deliveries as Grace Potts (three for 15) and Georgia
Davies (three for 23) were the pick of the bowlers.
Ten runs from Katherine Fraser (12), with a four and a six to finish things, helped the
Diamonds to 80 for nine. Which looked like it could be tricky to chase.
Central Sparks certainly made it look like hard work as they, too, lost regular wickets,
and no player was going to make a telling contribution. Only Chloe Brewer (14) and
Eve Jones (26) in the top six made it into double figures, with Rachel Slater picking
up two for ten from her two overs to continue a good weekend for the Scottish
contingent in the competition.
The Sparks chase was going to rely on Jones. Having lost Katie George (9) to a
superb catch from Leah Dobson. The ball swirled in the breeze but she eventually
took it one-handed over her head.
Jones was joined by Arlott with eleven runs needed from eight balls. Arlott is a batter
capable of hitting big, and she smashed her first ball for four, bringing the equation
down, and by the end of the over, only five were required from the six deliveries.
A two from the first ball of Levick’s final over was pushed for two, and the next was
played for a single. Two from four balls seemed ideal for Sparks, but Arlott, looking to
finish the game, could only sky the next ball for Kalis to gratefully take the catch.
Georgia Davis, the new batter, was on strike against the wily Levick, and the
batter couldn’t get it away for the successive two balls. The tension
started to build, and it went down to the wire. Davis, sensing the best option was to
hit back down the ground. She did just that, much to the joy of her captain as they
scampered two runs to win by three wickets off the last ball of the match.
