Last Saturday 3rd June saw the inaugural Creditwest North Cyprus Ladies series pitch West against East in a hard fought battle. The match was held at the Pia Bella stadium’s 5-a-side football pitch and was contested by teams of 4 players, a fast and furious format based upon indoor cricket.
TRNC captain Gina Mapp explained that following the North’s decisive wins last month against both the South Cyprus teams, they weren’t now able to field sides against us. So, as the cricket is amazing fun, we didn’t want it to die and therefore have created our own two match competition between players West of Girne and to the East.
West’s Steph Routledge and Lindsey Brown opened immediately smashed the bowling for 51 runs in their 4 overs. Next Ayttis Lilianna contributed 5, but the final pairing of Rannveig Ystaas and Gina Mapp added only 4 as the East’s Lynn Holman and Linda Hurley took a wicket apiece. Debutant Gloria Garcia kept the pressure on conceding only 5 runs from her bowling, followed by an outstandingly tight death over of -3 by Val Maskell. With each wicket being scored as minus 5 runs, it kept the West’s final score in check at 55.
East’s reply got off to a promising start, but accurate bowling from Routledge and Ystaas didn’t allow Holman and Maskell to make a big enough inroad into the total within their 4 overs. Ayttis Lilianna bowling her own loopy style was also difficult to score off. The pressure of getting 34 runs for victory proved too much for the final pair of Garcia and Hurley. They attacked bravely, but Hurley was out a couple of times to good balls from both Routledge and Mapp which put the score beyond them, leaving a final total of 28.
Afterwards, coach Nigel Holman added it’s a great shame we couldn’t play against South Cyprus, but having our own competition had created a high level match, with outstanding personal performances, for example our 3 strike bowlers of Brown, Maskell and Routledge, bowling only one wide between them and Mapp taking a reaction catch with the ball being deflected of the roof netting.
11am at Pia Bella next Saturday will see the final match in the series with the West looking for revenge. Anyone interested in playing or watching is very welcome. For more information please call Gina on 0533 833 2069.
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Left to right :Back row: Bill Brown (umpire), Ayttis Lilianna, Val Maskell, Lindsey Brown, Rannveig Ystaas, Nigel Holman (umpire), Kevin Mapp (scorer)
Front row: Steph Routledge, Lynn Holman, Gina Mapp, Gloria Garcia, Linda Hurley
