The first outing of the season for the U11 Girls was a home fixture against Nottinghamshire at Clifton CC
A very poor forecast thankfully changed, and we were blessed with a beautiful day, perfect for cricket. The format agreed for the day was a 30-overs a side match.
Nottinghamshire won the toss and elected to bat, scoring at a good rate throughout their innings and making an impressive 149/7 in their 30 overs, with some strong hitting and excellent running between the wickets. Most players bowled 2 or 3 overs each, wickets were shared around, with 2 going to Olivia Sellors. The team wide and no-ball count was rather high – so room for improvement there!
Kyrie-Anna Shelton and Izzy Naylor shared the wicket-keeping, doing a pretty good job and conceding relatively few byes. Debutant Charlie Jones took a good catch and Elsa Maronge completed a direct hit runout, but we also dropped a couple of chances and missed some runout opportunities throughout the day.
After the break, Derbyshire went into bat losing a few wickets early on to some rapid and straight bowling from Notts. A 5th wicket partnership of 48 between Daisy Flindall (14*) and Kyrie-Anna Shelton (20) was the highlight of our batting performance, which finished on 79/6 after our 30 overs.
Despite losing our first game, it was a good experience for the girls and the very first for several of them. They did well to field and bat for 30 overs and saw an excellent team performance from the Notts girls particularly with the bat, so we know what we need to do!
The next fixture for the U11s is against Yorkshire on the 15th June.
