The Women’s Cricket Southern League Super 8 Twenty20 Competition that started in early August reached the finals stage on Sunday, 13th September at East Molesey Cricket Club in Surrey.

In the first of the semi-finals matches Twickenham ladies faced Radlett.   Thanks to some good bowling and fielding Twickenham restricted Radlett to 98 for 5 wickets in their 15 overs.

In the second Semi-Final, Leeds & Broomfield batted first against Brighton & Hove and made a solid start with Riti Patel and Melanie Abeysinghe posting 75 at run-a-ball before Patel was bowled by Sophie Cawley for 41. Elysa Hubbard 26 not out kept the run rate up with some aggressive batting to help L&B to a healthy score of 124 for 2 as Abeysinghe (41) fell in the final over.

Chiara Green and Sophie Cawley started cautiously but Nithu Jayalath produced an unplayable delivery to bowl Cawley in the second over. Kath Sealey joined Green and steadied the innings until Green was dismissed by Georgina White with the score on 38 in the 7th over. Sealey and Emily Hopkins accelerated until Abeysinghe struck in the 10th over with wickets of Sealey and Kerry Poundsett.

Hopkins sensed the urgency and went on the attack but soon became Abeysinghe’s 3rd victim as B&H could only manage 99 for 6 to lose by 25 runs.

The result set up a Final between Twickenham and Leeds & Broomfield, two teams that had never played each other. Again Twickenham's bowling plus an excellent run out was good enough to restrict L&B to 114 for 5, Pottay again doing her magic by taking two of those wickets.  Top scorer for Leeds and Broomfield was Abeysinghe on 36 not out, Patel made 18 and ex-Twickenham player Jayalath a rapid 17.   Leeds and Broomfield showed their sharpness in the field with 3 good runs outs, putting pressure on Twickenham to get the runs.  Despite Kat Dickens pushing the runs 42 not out and Pottay 17, the Twickenham were 9 runs short of victory when the final ball was delivered.

The tournament has been an overwhelming success for players, all of them showed improvement in batting, bowling and fielding departments. Most importantly the competition was played in good spirit over a period of six weekends with almost 70 matches involving 17 teams from the League.

Some photos, courtesy of Bipin Patel.  Click any photo to go to a larger version.

If you would like to become a member of the Women's section of Leeds and Broomfield Cricket Club please contact Bipin Patel or Michelle Johnson-Kerr or, if you're under 18, either Alan Moyler or Bob Patterson.  We'd very much like to see you!