Girls can...at Merstham CC, winning first game

Merstham Cricket Club, it seems, made its own contribution to the recent "This Girl Can" campaign by Sport England when the new Merstham Junior Girls side played their first ever competitive match. 

On Saturday July 4 the team took to the field and defeated Reigate (282-6) by 13 runs, scoring 295-7.

On a beautiful hot, sunny morning, Reigate Priory brought along a team to Quality Street to play a 20-over pairs game.  As Merstham had 11 players and Reigate were one short, Grace Chapman sportingly volunteered to swap sides for the day.

The team, the majority of whom are in Year 4, was captained by the senior player, Millie Harrigan.  Winning the toss, she elected to field first. 

In their innings Reigate made a good total of 282-6.  Two wickets fell in both Izzie Sheehan’s and Millie’s overs and one each in Amelie Tomlin’s and Gwen Sheehan’s.  Heena Rashid was the most economical of the bowlers. As the innings progressed the girls picked up on their fielding with some great run outs, plus a fantastic catch by Sian McRobbie at square leg.

An exciting run chase by Merstham followed.  Mollie Schofield and Sian got the team off to a great start, with 33 coming off their four overs.  This was mainly due to a great understanding between the pair resulting in excellent running between the wickets. 

A second great pairing of Amelie and Izzie followed, taking the score to 264 after 8 overs. Things began to get a bit tense as the whole team realised that they were in with a good chance of winning the match. 

Olivia Rawlinson and Gwen carefully brought  the score on to 275, followed by Isha Saleem and Heena leaving the last pair needing to score only four runs to win.  The rest of the team then got behind  Eleni Paraskeva and Millie cheering on every run and screaming (literally) “No!” if a run-out looked possible. 

The batting pair took no chances, resulting in a comfortable win for the Merstham girls.  Big cheers and hugs all round.  Mollie was Merstham’s top scorer with 13.  Of note for the Priory was Grace’s bowling who limited Merstham to only eight runs off her two overs. 

A special mention goes to Merstham’s two young coaches/umpires for the day – Ryan Murrough and Olivia’s cousin Daniel Grant.  Thanks also to the team’s usual coaches (club captain) Richard Feist and Sylvia McGillivray and lastly to the Priory team.  The game was played with great sportsmanship (and spirits) all round and was enjoyed by all.

Well done Merstham. Let’s hope this is the first of many more matches for the team.