Ickenham’s women’s cricket team completed a wonderful summer of cricket on Sunday 15 September when they defeated The Mote Cricket Club by 46 runs to win the Southern Counties Final. The victory came shortly after Gunnersbury had won the Women’s Cricket Southern League, thus completing a stunning double for Women’s cricket in Middlesex.
Ickenham qualified for The Southern Counties Cup Finals Day in Horsham by winning the Esme Irwin Premier League, which is the leading women’s league in Middlesex.
The Southern Counties Finals Day was a round robin 20 0ver competition involving The Mote Cricket Club from Kent and Hailsham from Sussex, clubs that had won their respective county leagues. In their first match Ickenham comfortably defeated Hailsham by 55 runs. Batting first Ickenham scored 118 in their 20 overs. For this they were indebted to Sherisa Gumbs with 42. In reply Hailsham could muster just 63 against an excellent attack led by Emily Thorpe, who took 3-11 in 3.1 overs. Siya Nanavati also had the remarkable figures of 2-1 in three overs.
In their second and tournament winning game against The Mote, Ickenham once again batted first, and on this occasion posted a very challenging total of 151. Gumbs, with 35, once again top scored but there were also important contributions from Shristi Patil |(33) and Dhriti Praveen (28). In reply The Mote never really challenged and fell 46 runs short. Their innings was held together by an unbeaten 52 from Sophie Beck. Ickenham’s star performer with the ball was Shristi Patil, who took 3-21 in her four overs. Emily Thorpe and Katie Wolfe gave Patil excellent support conceding just 27 runs in the eight overs they bowled.
As mentioned above, Ickenham reached Finals Day by winning the Esme Irwin league by 11 points. They achieved this by winning seven of their 12 matches. Sherisa Gumbs was the star batter, scoring 548 runs at an average of just under 55. In 10 innings Gumbs struck two hundreds and two fifties, the highlight being a brilliant 142 off 86 balls against Harrow St Mary’s. Shristi Patil gave Gumbs great support by scoring 244 runs at an average of just under 35, including an excellent unbeaten 117 against North London.
With the ball Emily Thorpe shone, taking 19 wickets at an average of 10.63. Tanvi Ravikumar, Erin Simmonds and Khashish Choudhay gave Thorpe good support, all by taking more than 10 wickets. Ravikumar claimed the best figures of the season by taking 4-9 in her four overs against Harrow St Mary’s.
Congratulations to all involved at Ickenham Cricket Club on their success in the competition.
