Red Rose women achieve double
LANCASHIRE Women have won the two domestic county women’s competitions to take the double, with victory in the NatWest Women’s County T20 earlier in the season, and now the Royal London Women’s One-Day Championship.
The Red Rose Women’s 1st XI went into the final round of fixtures in the Royal London Women’s One-Day Championship Division 1 with a slim chance of lifting the title needing to win both of their games and hoping for results elsewhere to go their way.
The first game of the weekend saw them host Nottinghamshire at Heywood and resulted in an impressive win by 63 runs to keep their hopes alive.
Bank Holiday Monday saw the girls travel down to the Edgbaston Foundation Ground knowing that they effectively needed to get a maximum points win over fellow title chasers Warwickshire and hope that Nottinghamshire could do Lancashire a massive favour by defeating Yorkshire comprehensively.
The home side won the toss and decided to bat on a glorious sunny day against the bowling of England pair Sophie Ecclestone and Kate Cross. Ecclestone bowled quite brilliantly and was soon among the wickets quickly grabbing 4 wickets and adding a catch off Cross for good measure to leave Warwickshire 27-5. Cross then grabbed a 2nd before a 7th wicket stand of 26 which threatened to start a recovery. Natalie Brown cut that short before Ecclestone returned to help mop up the tail and finish with remarkable figures of 10-5-12-6. Cross taking the final wicket to finish with 3/33, Warwickshire were dismissed for just 88.
Warwickshire came out fighting and took three early wickets to leave the game in the balance at 21-3. Ellie Threlkeld joined Eve Jones and together they took the score to 59 before Threlkeld was stumped for 15. Cross came in and rattled up a quick 19 before holing out and it was left to Ecclestone to administer the final blows with two quick boundaries. Jones had scored an unbeaten 35 to anchor the innings.
An anxious wait for news from Welbeck then ensued for the club as Nottinghamshire chased Yorkshire’s total of 178 and eventually word came through that they had won by 6 wickets and Lancashire were confirmed as champions.
Dan Atkinson, head coach for Lancashire Women, said: “I’m incredibly proud of this group of girls who have worked so hard all year. It’s probably fair to say that we weren’t expecting to finish the season with any silverware, as our primary aim at the start was to consolidate our position in the top tier of the Royal London 50 overs championship, but to win both the NatWest T20 and now the Royal London county championship is an unbelievable achievement.
“Going into the last game, we knew what we needed to do to stay in contention and challenge for the title but so much was out of our control relying on Nottinghamshire to beat Yorkshire by a healthy margin. We played excellent cricket against Warwickshire to secure our win with full bonus points but it made for a very nervy journey home, checking social media every ten seconds to see how the Notts girls were getting on! When news came through that Notts had defeated Yorkshire by six wickets the feeling was amazing.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the girls for their hard work and determination over the summer, to Meg Fairclough for her leadership on the pitch this year and thanks to everyone else who has contributed to this season.”
A terrific team effort as Lancashire Women win the Royal London One-Day Championship by one point ahead of Yorkshire. The team led by skipper Meg Fairclough backed by coach Dan Atkinson and his staff has seen the team pull off the double as both 50 and 20 over 1st Division champions – the first top level trophies ever won by Lancashire Women.