The Creditwest TRNC Ladies Cricket team launched their season with an historic first festival win in the All Cyprus league.
New captain Gina Mapp said it was a day of extremes, we arrived at the Lakatania ground in South Nicosia to find the pitch was knee high in weeds with swarms of bees enjoying the wild flowers and vicious spikey seeds that stuck into the ball, making it totally unplayable.
Quickly transferring to a nearby astro pitch. The first game saw the TRNC take on their Greek Cypriot counterparts who lost the toss and were put into bat. Steph Routledge struck immediately having Ana caught behind by Lynn Holman and next ball Chaki caught and bowled. With each wicket being scored as -5 runs the Greek’s first pair finished on 6. A run out in the next over followed by a maiden from Lindsey Brown and a catch by Steph Routledge off Gina Mapp’s first ball, left the Masooma and Madina in deep trouble with a team score reduced to naught. The final pair of Kirstin and Maria tried hard but another catch by Routledge this time off Maskell and a repeat of the first wicket with Maria edging to Holman off Routledge’s gave a final team total of only 4 runs. The North’s travelling fans were heard to comment it was ironic that the tightest bowler Lindsey Brown who only had one scoring shot off her overs, didn’t get a wicket.
Mapp was determined that the TRNC’s domination in the field was carried through to victory. She instructed her team to defend knowing the only way they would lose was if they threw away their wickets. Opening pair of Lynn Holman and Linda Hurley carefully put on 25, which allowed Routledge 20, Maskell 6, Brown 30 and Mapp 10 to cut loose, giving a total of 91 and a huge win.
The TRNC’s next opposition was the talented Sri Lankans, a team they had always struggled to beat. The sub-continent side chose to bat and again Routlege first oversaw 2 wickets in successive balls, This game proved much tougher with some hard hitting, but wickets from Holman, Brown and another one for Routledge kept the North in the hunt chasing a total of 44. Holman 4 and an outstanding 20 from Norwegian debutant Rannweig, followed by Routledge 26, Maskell 5 who saw little of the bowling, Mapp 4 and Brown 13 gave the North a 28 runaway victory.
Coach Nigel Holman said everyone had been amazing with the benefits of all the hard training paying real dividends, particularly the accurate bowling and sharp catching, which took the pressure off the batting.
The celebrations of the TRNC’s first festival clean sweep started at George’s Café immediately upon returning to Girne and went on until late in the night at various venues.
Creditwest All Cyprus Ladies Cricket League
Team Played Won Draw Points
TRNC 2 2 0 6
Limassol 2 1 0 3
Sri Lankans 2 0 0 0
The next coaching session is on Saturday 6th May at 11am and players new to the game are very welcome and can call Gina on 0533 833 2069.
The cream won!