The U15 girls took on Leicestershire in 2 T20s at Clifton CC on Wednesday 8th June.
The first game of the day saw Derbyshire win the toss and captain Caitlyn Mitchell chose to bat first.
Some tight bowling from Leicestershire meant that the Derbyshire batters struggled to keep the run rate up across the innings. Derbyshire’s innings finished 88/5 which looked under par for the pitch and would require some good bowling. Pick of the batters were Ophelia Wenham (26), Erynn Crosby (23), and Freya Harper (22).
Phoebe Arthan and Maria Andrews opened the bowling and got us off to a great start, with Leicestershire scoring their first runs off the 3rd over of the game. Both Phoebe and Maria bowled their allotted 4 overs each straight up setting us up for the rest of the game with the score at 6/2, Maria taking 2 wickets.
Leicestershire captain Flora, took the fight to our bowlers making a good 33 but it wasn’t enough to take them over the line, with Leicestershire finishing 24 runs short of the target.
After a break for tea, Leicestershire won the toss and elected to bowl first in the second game of the day, sending Derbyshire back in to set a total again.
Derbyshire made some slight changes to their batting order to allow other players to showcase different areas of their game. Ophelia Wenham and Priya Kondratiuk opened the batting and put on 23 before Ophelia fell for 14. Priya put on an excellent batting display scoring 53* from 50 balls aiding in the final Derbyshire total of 112 for 5.
Phoebe Arthan and Maria Andrews opened the bowling again with Leicestershire getting off to a more positive start with the bat in this game. It was Poppy Walker who made the first breakthrough trapping the Leicestershire opener in front of the stumps. Poppy also took the only other wicket for a bowler in the innings, bowling the other opener with the score at 22-2.
A brilliant partnership between Flora and Isla-Rose set Leicestershire up for chasing down the total sent but Isla-Rose was ran out by Erynn Crosby for 32 with the score at 105-3. This started a string of run outs towards the end of the game as Leicestershire edged closer and closer to the target set. 2 more run outs set the game on a knifes edge for the final over. On the final ball, Derbyshire had 1 too many fielders outside the fielding circle meaning that it was a no ball and a single was taken. With the final ball now being a free hit, Leicestershire required 2 runs to win the game and 1 to draw. Maria Andrews was as cool as a cucumber coming in bowl. The Leicestershire batter knocked it into the legside and keeper Ophelia gathered the ball and threw it down to Maria for a run out before 1 run could be taken.
A Derbyshire win, but incredible fight shown by the both teams with the game played in the right spirit between the players and a great showcase of skill all around.
A huge thankyou to Clifton CC for their hospitality once again.
