Report: Bears Women vs Surrey Women, T20 County Cup Semi Final

Bears Women fought valiantly but fell to a three-wicket defeat in the Semi-Finals of the inaugural Vitality T20 Women’s County Cup in Taunton. 

Surrey appeared to be on top at the halfway stage of the game, after restricting the Bears to just 133/9 from their 20 overs.

An impressive powerplay saw the side’s young pace duo take 4 wickets, with Alexa Stonehouse ending with figures of 4/29 (4.0) and Ryana MacDonald-Gay reaping similar rewards with 2/25 (4.0). Right-arm spinner Dani Gregory was the pick of the spin attack with 3/20 from her four-over allocation. 

The Bears did an excellent job in rebuilding from 67/6 at the halfway stage of their innings. There were late contributions of 25 (19) from Meg Austin, alongside a fifty-run partnership between Amu Surenkumar (23 from 22) and Georgia Davis (26 from 30). After a late flourish off the bat of Millie Taylor (11* from 10), the Bears produced what looked around a par total.

Surrey started their chase well through captain Bryony Smith at the top of the order, as she made a quick-fire 16 from 10 before being bowled by an in-swinging Hannah Rainey delivery in the second over. It was a similar story for fellow opener Kira Chathli, bowled by Charis Pavely shortly after hitting the first six of the game. 

The Bears’ bowling attack did well to restrict an experienced Surrey batting line-up to 70/6 from the opening 10 overs, three runs behind the Bears’ 73/6 at the same stage of their innings.

In a dramatic end to proceedings, after a 58-run partnership between Kalea Moore and Ryana MacDonald-Gay, Millie Taylor caught Moore for 35 (31) off the bowling of Bears captain Georgia Davis, and the Three Feathers required just 14 to win from 13 balls. 

However, Surrey overcame the late threat as Stonehouse hit a boundary off the bowling of Pavely with two balls to go to take them through to the final. Spinner Hannah Baker was the pick of the Bears’ bowling attack, taking 3/25 from 4 overs.

Surrey will face the winner of the second semi-final, between fellow Tier One sides The Blaze and Lancashire. With it, they gain the opportunity to become the inaugural champions of the Vitality T20 Women’s County Cup, a tournament created by the ECB to allow Tiers One, Two and Three of the domestic women’s game to come up against one another.

Bears Captain, Georgia Davis said, “It’s definitely disappointing, losing is disappointing, but the girls showed some really good fight there, and I’m really proud of them for what they have done.

“With both bat and ball, we probably showed quite a lot of fight. We probably lost wickets when we didn’t want to. We fought back at the end and got ourselves to a decent score, and we got off to a really good start, and then they just built a bit of a partnership in the middle and look… they are allowed to play well at the end of the day! We’ve got to give them a bit of credit! There are a lot of positives to take from that for us.

“I’m so proud of the girls. There are a few that have probably sat on the sidelines, felt a bit disappointed. Like Millie Taylor has come in in this comp and bowled really well, so that’s really nice to see! It obviously gives us some headaches going into the T20 selection. But look, it’s lovely to see what they can do and I’m really proud of all of them.”