After their emphatic wins in round one against Wiltshire, and Hertfordshire in round two, the Oxfordshire Women’s team travelled to Nottingham to take on Tier 1 league leaders, The Blaze, in the last 16 of the ECB T20 Vitality Blast. Having won all five matches so far this season, Oxfordshire have made a brilliant start but knew that this match would be their biggest test yet. The Blaze are a fully professional team, boasting several internationally capped players, including Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont.
Oxfordshire won the toss and elected to bat on a used pitch at the Nottingham Sports Ground. Sophie Mitchelmore showed her intent in the first over, looking to ramp the ball to fine leg, whilst the 100 capped Genny Porter got off the mark with a brilliantly timed pull behind square. After Ported chopped on, Kirsty Dymond came in for her first appearance of the season and struck a measured 16, alongside the swashbuckling Sophie Grayson who punched her second ball for 6 over cover.
With the away team 60-5 from the first 10 overs, Katie Waugh hit back to back reverse sweeps for 4 to add some impetus to the innings with the experienced Ellie Ingram at the other end. After their partnership was brought to an end by a brilliant piece of fielding, Oxfordshire then lost both of their talented U15’s, Niamh Rogan and Rabiya Dogar, in quick succession the innings closed on 97 in the final over.
Knowing they needed to apply pressure early on, Chloe Westbury found the outside edge of Marie Kelly’s bat with the first ball of the innings, but landed safely and ran to third man to open The Blaze’s account. Westbury continued to tie both openers down, with Sophie Grayson’s off spin at the other end creating two close LBW calls that were both turned down.
Oxfordshire continued their search for a breakthrough and despite some excellent fielding from Maisie Wright and Katie Waugh, were unable to break the opening partnership who showed their class, dispatching any loose delivery to the boundary. After Lottie Oxton and her leg spin were removed from the attack, the home team reached their target with a crunching cover drive, sending them through to the quarter finals.
Head coach, George Setterfield, said “this was an amazing day for our squad. I’m so proud of the players for, not just getting to this stage of the competition, but the way in which they fought on the pitch. We stuck to our game plan and played with bravery. We’ve learnt some massive lessons about what it takes to play against the best, and it’s only going to help us improve us all along our journey.”
After helping Oxfordshire to reach the last 16 with a quickfire 53* from 29 balls against
Hertfordshire, Ellie Ingram, taking on the role of stand-in captain, leading the team in Emilia’s absence said, “we knew this was going to be an enormous test for the squad, and everyone rose to the challenge. The support we have for each other in the squad has never been better – it’s what’s helped us get to this stage of the competition. We’ve got a great group of players with skill sets that complement each other brilliantly and I’m really excited by what this group can achieve this season.”
Oxfordshire now turn their attention to the T20 league competition where they will take on Cornwall at Thame Town CC on Sunday 15th June.