Sophie’s England honour
ALVANLEY Cricket Club star Sophie Ecclestone has realised her dreams and has played her first full game for England Ladies in front of the Sky Sports cameras.
The 17-year-old spinner who has been playing cricket at Alvanley since she learned to walk also took her first wicket.
She had Pakistan’s star batter Sidra Ameen caught by Katherine Brunt putting a dent in Pakistan’s victory charge.
Indeed Sophie’s frugal figures of 1-21 off four overs’ work helped secure England the w win in the first contest of a three-game series.
Sophie was interviewed after the game and told viewers how proud she was to be called up and that she enjoyed the experience.
She certainly looked at home in front of a healthy Bristol crowd that included her proud family. After impressing on recent tours to Sri Lanka and in appearances for the England ‘A’ team, Sophie, despite her age, has forced her w way into one of the strongest international teams in world cricket.
After a nerveless start, it surely will only be the start of a long international career.
Elsewhere at Alvanley, the first-team helped themselves to a maximum 25 points in a seven-wickets victory over Upton.
Their opponents had won five in a row and w were sitting in second place in the league before the contest.
Chris Charles won the toss and elected to bowl first but might have regretted that decision as Upton took 71 runs off the first 11 overs.
Upton did at least lose Nat Sariman in this time but Chris Stowell-Smith was hitting the ball like a man possessed.
Fortunately for Alvanley this hitting came to an end when Jimmy Ecclestone rearranged his stumps. This was to be the beginning of an impressive passage of play for Alvanley as Ecclestone and Max Tonge put the brakes on and took regular wickets.
A score of 71-1 became 98-6 as both bowlers hit great lengths. Smart catching backed the bowlers up as both ended their spells with great figures. Ecclestone claimed 4-29 off 15 overs, while Tonge bagged 2-14 off his seven.
A score of 150 looked to be decent and Upton nudged their way towards it as troublesome lower order partnerships kept them in the game.
Rob Fisher made sure these didn’t develop too much with stingy figures of 1-14 off eight. Andy Roberts’s 34 not out took the home team to 154 all out, a total that will have kept both teams interested.
Alvanley opened up with Ste Charles and Mike Rowlands.
The new ball zipped around for the Upton bowlers and the Alvanley lads had to work incredibly hard to stick around. They did.
They saw off the first 10 overs for just 13 runs but as they got used to the conditions, so the runs began to flow.
Some 40 runs came off the next 10 overs as Charles found fortune down the ground and through the on side.
Rowlands punched well through mid-off and the score kept building. The 100 came up in the 28th over and the pair kept going until 123 when Charles fell lbw for a brilliant 62.
Ecclestone came and went but Si Gee added enough runs for the third wicket to calm any nerves before he was magnificently snaffled at midwicket.
Chris Wright came in with 20 needed and calmly added the needed runs with Rowlands to take Alvanley to an impressive sevenwicket win. Rowlands can be extremely satisfied with his 60 not out in almost two-and-ahalf hours of hard graft.
Alvanley are in fourth spot at the league’s halfway stage.