Our CSKI Queens put on a great show to claim 3rd place at the Girls Cricket Festival. Thanks to all the parents and caregivers for allowing them to come out and display their collective skills against other Cantabrian young ladies. Throughout the two days they were relentlessly positive and supportive of each other while applauding the skills of opposition players with grace when big game moments happened.
Emma was accurate and testing with her bowling and pierced the fielding sides with her effortless stroke play when batting. Her eye for a run out should never get challenged; so many bails were splayed when the opposition chanced taking a 2! Eden used all her speed to get quick runs to put the opposition fielding under immense pressure. She was very well balanced and used the face of the bat to glance into space. Eden also fielded with absolute commitment to stop boundary tracking drives. Isla grew in confidence immensely and played aggressive cross batted strokes to bowling attacks. Her bowling was demanding respect from the opposition with a line that threatened the wickets unerringly. Niamh had a wide variety of shots and worked the ball to all parts to keep our run rate high. This helped her establish which areas of the opposing field could be exploited for 2s and 4s. She tied up an end with her bowling and stopped established players from scoring. Hazel took on the role of captaincy, called the coin flips and then brought her express bowling pace to hurry up the opposition. Her footwork with the bat in hand helped her get into position to swat a lot of boundaries off the legside glance. Hannah used her height to really squeeze the opposing batters scoring rate with a sharp rising bounce on immaculate lengths that proved extremely hard to get away. Abbey put her body on the line in a big way during day one but kept returning to the field with guts and determination to get us across the line. She got us off to great starts with her batting and was duly rewarded with wickets when bowling in our 3rd place playoff. The 2 Emily Ws, Wellbeloved and Wilson, showed big game temperaments. Wellbeloved displayed strength hitting through the line of the ball with big lofted drives for boundaries over the top of mid off and claimed a wicket with her full length bowling. Wilson used her quick feet to hustle a lot of runs and returned the ball strongly when fielding. If the opposition had to move in the field to get to her shots, she would back herself to outpace them, finding a great partner in Eden, rotating the strike magnificently. Millie bowled with great pace and lines which batters struggled to find runs against. She had a massive 20th over in our playoff when 3 wickets fell in absolute scenes- a catch, a run out and a bowled! With her confidence high, she struck out when batting and got us off to a flier.
I had a great time with the team and wish them all the best with their cricketing in the future. Rob Wilkinson, the director of CJCA events, talked about running this festival towards the end of Term 1 in 2025. Hopefully our current crop of Year 7s will want to have another crack at the big show in 2025!
