Stars came to Beckenham intent on continuing their cup-winning performance, in the Charlotte Edwards Cup, in the longer format.
They made excellent use of a mostly friendly pitch to build a huge score, but then Lightning delayed their celebrations with a heart-warming show of their own.
Stars adjusted their batting order, Alice Davidson-Richards restored to open with skipper Bryony Smith, and Aylish Cranstone down at No 5 after her fine day in the recent final. But both AD-R and Kirstie White fell for single figures in the first ten overs. No matter, Smith (84) and Alice Capsey (78) came together again to make batting look ridiculously easy; they built a 105-run partnership in 15 overs.
The rain that was threatened brought a brief halt, but hardly affected Stars’ progress. There were groans when the two star batters got out, Smith edging Yvonne Graves behind to Abi Freeborn and Capsey needlessly run out to a good throw from Kathryn Bryce.
But Stars have batting in depth, and the score mounted relentlessly – Cranstone (17), Kira Chathli (21) and especially Kalea Moore (39) and Emma Jones (20*), who put on 50 for the ninth wicket in under seven overs. Moore looked very assured, hitting the ball to all parts with attacking bravado.
Kirstie Gordon once more bowled quite beautifully (2-37 off 10).
A total just short of 300 looked well beyond Lightning’s resources, but the Bryce sisters both found their batting mojo that had largely gone missing this season. Sarah struck 45 inside the first fourteen overs; then skipper Kathryn pummelled 87 in the 26 overs she was at the crease. Only another fine throw from Grace Gibbs brought her up short on Australia’s favourite unlucky number.
Stars’ fielding stood in sharp contrast to their bowling. Between them the seven bowlers offered 23 wides, lowering the pressure they were trying to inflict. By contrast they will have delighted their fielding coach with a competitive approach all through.
As Lightning threatened to get uncomfortably close to their target, Smith (3-46) gave herself another spell and took valuable wickets. She also gave Phoebe Franklin (2-20) a longer spell than usual and she turned up trumps disturbing the stumps twice to dislodge determined opponents.
Lightning’s strong response reduced Stars’ chances of making it through to the final stages. They really needed three straight wins from these three last rounds and bonus points to boot. In that respect they fell well short. The bowlers will need to tighten up their lines before they meet Central Sparks at Worcester on Sunday.
Result
SE Stars 293-9
Lightning 265
Stars won by 28 runs
Umpires: Sophie McLelland and Neil Mallender
