Hove, 19 June
1 Psychology
Sports psychologists have no doubt submitted learned theses on how cricketers react to playing in the game before the one that matters. I haven’t, but I do know that SE Stars put up one of their poorest performances ever against Vipers.
So dismal were the bowling spells of certain leading Stars that Bryony Smith brought herself on for the first time in the tournament to bowl the eighteenth and twentieth overs. She took Bouchier’s wicket.
Then the batting: Smith took 18 off Freya Davies’ first over. She made 22. The remaining ten batters mustered 39 runs between them, not a single one reaching double figures.
A final total of 66 was embarrassing. Fortunately for them, Thunder obliged with an even lower 61 against Diamonds the same day.
Despite this setback Stars finished second in the table behind The Blaze.
2 Attendance
Was the reason for this disaster that up to 3,000 schoolchildren made their presence felt? Of course their support was exclusively for the home side.
The Hove attendance made a striking contrast with the three other games. Couldn’t more adminstrators mount a similar effort?
3 An Initial Thought
Once again Tilly (Matilda) Corteen-Coleman finished with the most economical bowling analysis for Stars, 4-1-20-1. Colin Cowdrey (Kent and England captain, later a lord of the realm), was deliberately given the initials MCC by his cricket-doting parents. Is the same true of this cricketer from a different generation?
Sadly for Stars’ fans she had minimal competition from the rest of the attack. Drop the ball in short at Hove, and your fine is a four or a six.
4 Bouchier bashes
Maia Bouchier played herself back into form with her highest ever T20 score of 93. There were imperfect strokes early on, but very loose bowling (Emma Jones’ 1-0-20-0, a prime example) allowed her to swing mightily for fours and sixes to get her going. One recurring weakness was her paddle; twice early on she didn’t connect as planned. Then, with a glorious 100 staring her in the face, she tried another and fell lbw to Smith.
She finished with 93 off 55 balls, including eleven 4s and three 6s.
5 Dean delivers
Charlie Dean couldn’t match MCC’s recent run of wickets taken with her first delivery; she had to wait till her second, getting Paige Scholfield lbw. Everything comes to her who waits. She took 3-5 to surpass her 3-24 against Storm at Bristol.
6 As luck would have it
Quite by chance the four regions taking part in the finals day at Derby on Saturday met in this final round of the regular season. We shall see what bearing today’s results will have. Perhaps a team deliberately plays under par to mislead the impending opposition. Given the hit-and-miss nature of T20 cricket, the answer must be no.
And who are Vipers to meet in the semi? Stars, of course. So the final will be a battle between the South and the Midlands. No room for the North. Levelling up at work.
Scores
Vipers 179-5
SES 66 (14 overs)
Vipers won by 113 runs – a giant margin by any calculation
