Northern Superchargers v London Spirit at Headingey ‘The Hundred Women’ August 11th

Neil Whitaker reports

LONDON Spirit beat the Northern Supercharges by seven wickets with 14 balls to spare to leap the Supercharges and end their season on a losing note.


Supercharges captain Hollie Armitage said: “It’s a disappointing way to end  the season on and not the most competitive way to finish the season.”


Winning the toss and electing to bat the Supercharges never got going.  Armitage added: “We were unable to execute our plans.” Alice Davidson-Richards top scored for the Supercharges with 33 before she was comprehensively bowled by Danielle Gibson off the last ball of their hundred balls.


Davidson-Richards shared in the three top partnerships of the Supercharges innings.  The first and highest was with Annabel Sutherland when they added 30 for the fourth wicket coming together  when the Superchargers had slumped to 14 for three.

Her partnership with Sutherland was broken when Sutherland took a couple of paces down the pitch to Deepit  Sharma but got too far under it and found Cordelia  Griffith at long-on.



She  was joined by Grace Wareham as they added 39 and kept the scoreboard moving  but eventually the pressure of not having enough runs on the board paid its price.  Frustrated at not getting the ball away Wareham had a big drive at Eva  Gray but found Charlie Dean  on the long-on boundary. Bess Heath was adjudged leg before to Gray’s next ball.


Kate Cross had some fun and in the nine balls with Davidson-Richard they added 16 before Davidson-Richard’s  was bowled.



After winning the toss and deciding to bat the Supercharges lost their first wicket to the first legal ball of the match when Marie Kelly was beaten by the pace of Tara Norris and the ball crashed into her stumps.  Norris’ first ball was a legside wide 


Armitage joined her opening partner back in the hutch when she had a big  swing at Gray and was bowled. Phoebe Litchford was lucky when she speared a yorker from Gibson to Gray at cover but the ball died on her.  But her luck soon ran out when she took a couple of paces down the pitch to Gibson missed the ball and was bowled.


Armitage said: “We decided to bat because Headingley is a good pitch but we should have scored at least 20 more but in this year’s competition we have bowled sides  for 80.” Out of the 100 balls the Supercharges faced 42 were dot balls and that is where the Supercharges lost the match.


For the London Spirit Gray took three wickets for 17  and Gibson took for 17 in their 40 balls. 



Seeing the Spirit home were  captain Heather Knight and Sharma who added an unbroken 77 in 61 balls. The pair came together after the Spirit had lost three wickets for 22.


When   Meg Lamming clipped Cross off her toes for a six over fine leg and then  she hit consecutive fours, the first over extra cover and the second over long-on, it looked like the Spirit would romp home easily. But that was it from Lanning, she backed away from Smith and drilled her to Wareham at cover. Griffith was beaten by  that spun outside her by the left arm spinner 


Smith got her third wicket when after three dot balls Georgia Redmayne chipped the ball back to her at a comfortable height.


Sharma slogged Sutherland over the long-on boundary for a six.  Later she smashed Wareham for a one bounce four into the Howard stand. Knight stroked  Sutherland for a classic extra cover boundary to take their target to 20 from 25 balls.  She reduced the target even further by hitting consecutive boundaries off Smith and she  pulled  Cross to the final leg boundary to level the scores.

SCORECARD