Report: Bears Women vs Surrey, Vitality Blast
Surrey cemented their place at the top of the Women’s Vitality Blast with a thrilling four-wicket victory over the Bears at Edgbaston.
Bryony Smith’s side edged to their eighth win in ten games after bowling the home side out for 139. Sterre Kalis resisted with 38 (30 balls), but wickets fell frequently to a focused attack led by Alice Davidson-Richards (three for 11) and Alexa Stonehouse (two for 23).
Surrey’s batters also found the going hard, but Emma Jones hit a fluent 46 (39) before an unbroken stand of 42 in 24 balls between Davidson-Richards (28, 18) and Kalea Moore (22, 14) saw them home with two balls to spare.
It was a valiant effort from a depleted Bears side, which is without all-rounder Charis Pavely for the foreseeable future due to a stress fracture in her left foot.
The Bears chose to bat but lost both openers in the first eight balls. Meg Austin tried to pull a ball too far up and shanked a return catch back to Stonehouse. Davina Perrin swung a full toss from Danielle Gregory to deep mid-wicket.
Alice Monaghan took that catch and another, this time at backward point, when Amu Surenkumar sliced an attempt to Stonehouse. When Katie George’s charge at Bryony Smith presented Kira Chathli with a regulation stumping, Bears were 42 for four.
Kalis and Nat Wraith started the stirring of a recovery with a stand of 27, but both perished in Davidson-Richards’ first over. Kalis clipped the medium-pacer’s first ball to short fine leg. Wraith skied her fourth to point.
Laura Harris smote Ryana MacDonald-Gay for the first six of the day, but the bowler’s revenge was swift via a catch by Kalea Moore at deep mid-wicket three balls later. Millie Taylor (26 not out, 27 balls) and Hannah Baker added 32 from 24 balls to at least stretch the innings into the 20th over, but Davidson-Richards returned to have Baker caught at point, and the home side came in well under par.
Surrey’s reply sustained an early hit when Monaghan hoisted the sixth ball, from Phoebe Brett, to deep mid-wicket. Grace Harris lifted Davis to long on, but Smith (26, 26) and Jones were soon punching the ball precisely through the offside gaps to add 47 from 31 balls.
Smith’s fall, lbw pulling at Davis, triggered a collapse. Chathli holed out to Taylor, Jones lifted Surenkumar to deep extra, and Franklin top-edged a sweep at Taylor to short fine leg.
Davidson-Richards and Moore stabilised the innings with excellent, measured batting and went into the last two overs with 19 needed. After Moore slog-swept Davis for six, seven were required from the last, bowled by Surenkumar, and the seventh-wicket pair played it perfectly.
Bears all-rounder Katie George said: “We took it right to the last over and were in the game for large proportions of it, so for a game like that to slip away at the end is always disappointing.
“We were probably a few short in our innings, but Millie Taylor showed her quality. We know what a talent she is, and to show it with the ball and then with the bat today, it has been awesome to see. She got us to a total that we thought was defendable, but with the short boundary, you always have to play with margins and angles a little bit.
“It was disappointing, but we will still take a lot from the game. The break came at the wrong time for us because we had some really good momentum in the first block of games. But we just need to find that rhythm again, and I don’t think we are far away. We’ve got two games on the road now at Somerset and Hampshire, so it’s a big couple of days, and we are looking for two wins.
“Of course, we want to win games, but we also want to grow the game and to have brilliant games like this is only going to do wonders for the women’s game. Edgbaston is getting fuller and fuller by the game, which is awesome.”
