Surrey Women started their campaign in good style at Wimbledon CC against Sussex in the Vitality Women’s County T20, winning the first game of the day before coming unstuck in the second.
Points in the competition are only scored for the first game, so this was a strong start in the four-team competition (Kent and Hampshire being the other counties involved), which will see Finals Day take place at Totting and Eling CC on Sunday 8 May.
New captain Aylish Cranstone played in the first game, top-scoring with 40, before she, Bryony Smith and Eva Gray stepped down to manage workload. She says: “It’s nice to get the first one under the belt. I lost the toss and the pitch was tricky to bat on, so getting above 120 was OK, even though we were pushing for 10-15 more. When we bowled I was pretty nervous but all the girls hit their lines brilliantly and made it easy for me. Eva Gary picked up three wickets in her first three overs and from there it was much simpler.”
Two tight run outs helped the Surrey cause, as did impressive spells from Amy Gordon and Dani Gregory.
For the second match, where Sussex again won the toss, Aylish says: “The pitch had dried out, the outfield was quicker and they attacked us more. Alice Capsey and Dani got a couple of wickets each and we felt we could chase 147 but then we lost early wickets and found it tough, despite a good stand from Amy Gordon and Izzy Berry. We’ll take plenty of learnings into our next game and look to improve in certain areas.”
Aylish also presented debut caps to Charlotte Lambert and Laxmi Johal, adding to the squad’s strength in depth. Surrey Women’s next games in the competition are against Kent at Polo Farm in Canterbury next Sunday, 24 April.
