THCC Ladies hit and run – a solid captain’s knock

THCC Ladies 92/8 get beaten by Spielgemeinschaft Hannover/Göttingen 93/0.

THCC Rot-Gelb Ladies: Charlotte (capt.), Avni, Beant, Bianca, Birte (wkt.), Heike, Marlene, Rebekka, Sophie and Sumedha.

Hamburg 7.6.2014

Bulletin by Max Minor, THCC cricket correspondent

The last THCC Ladies match report (5/2014) asked where this team will go. Well, their latest game shows a welcome positive trend, at least if you look further than the dry figures. Yes, they were beaten again, but you have to know by whom. In fact, they faced all but the German national team. And as beginners, they could not win against the strong batting line-up from Hannover and Göttingen, not to mention the vicious bowling they had to face. Still, the ladies took courage and fought in true cricketing spirit. They were not afraid of the more experienced players and they showed good team-work in the field.

On a sunny Saturday, THCC Ladies lost the toss and were put in to bat. Unluckily opener Marlene fell victim to national team bowler Maura with her very first ball. Maura’s figures of 4-1-11-1 are impressive, but she got no further wicket. Heike fulfilled the coach’s wish of at least 2 runs per player. Avni also scored again. Sophie, who had only joined the team the day before at a training session arranged at short notice, hit her initial run in Bundesliga cricket. And Rebekka even played her very first cricket on the day of the match, stayed at the crease for a 57 runs partnership and contributed 3 runs herself. The most impressive batting performance, however, was delivered this time by the captain, Charlotte. With a strike rate of 117 she knocked 41 runs including 7 boundaries, most of them to long leg, and almost made her first half-century in ladies cricket. She did not only carry her bat, but coming in at no. 4 carefully guarded her waning number of partners right until the end of the innings. Bianca arrived at the crease at the death only to face a single ball. At 17/6 after 8 overs it had not looked like THCC Ladies would see the end of their 20 overs, but they did! And of their total of 92 runs, more than half came off the bat this time.

The two German national players from Hannover and Göttingen, Anna (36*) and Medha (25*), however, had no mercy with THCC Ladies’ bowling. Although Birte again kept her wicket clean, and especially Beant as well as new team member Sumedha ran hard trying to stop singles, there was no escape. After 13 boundaries in 6.1 overs the match was finished. Of course our ladies were disappointed, but not as much as the young girls from Göttingen who did not even get a chance to bat. THCC Ladies had lots of fun again and they will work on their bowling. Now they are looking forward to a couple of away games. If they go on like this, they will match one of their opponents eventually.

Aswin kindly umpired once more. The ladies coach was very grateful to a number of bowlers who assisted in an impromptu training session on the evening before the match, namely Ashish, Aswin, Cam, Guru, Jürgen, Komal, Liam, Jatin, Jyothy and Vinay. Some of them even offered to help again. The ladies cricket would certainly benefit from such an engage-ment. After all, this club has lots of dedicated and experienced cricketers who can assist from time to time. The ladies who took part are reported to have enjoyed their extra training.

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