History Metrobank50 Women Somerset v Lancashire
By Grockle
April 27 2025
Lancashire won the toss and put Somerset in on a lovely summer day - there are no changes to the Somerset side and so Knight and Corney open against Norris. I'll sort out what I can but apologies in advance for my lack of knowledge about the background of the sides. I'll get there. There's a decent group in to watch this historic game. It's and "I was there" day.
Metrobank 50 Women - Somerset v Lancashire Sunday 27 April 2025
And so the Somerset Women's era starts at Taunton. After the glorious win at Beckenham against Surrey the side come home for the first ever professional 50 over game here for the county. The side is the same for this game;
Heather Knight, Emma Corney, Sophie Luff, Fran Wilson, Charlie Dean, Katie Jones, Alex Griffiths, Amanda-Jade Wellington, Chloe Skelton, Ellie Anderson, Laura Jackson
Lancashire win the toss and put Somerset in to bat. I know little about the Lancs players but I'll assess as I go and hopefully people will add stuff in the thread.
Kate Cross bowls the 4th over and has Knight pushing forward caught behind (Threlkeld) for 6 at 10 for 1. That brings in skipper Luff earlier than she had wnated but this side has to learn to play in scenarios where Knight isn't prominent because once the England players go off to represent, the true spine of the squad will be open to view and they may as well learn to shoulder the burden early.
Tara Norris opened from the MT Pavilion end and after 5 overs Somerset have 14 for the loss of 1 wicket. Grace Potts is a decent first change bowler for the 7th and once the visitors get their lines sorted the scoring is pretty hard and it might have been a decent toss to win.
Just before the 10th Cross gets Sophie nibbling at one and she is dimissed caught behind for 9 at 24 for 2. It seems Kate likes bowling here as she also got a bunch of wickets for England here in her visitis. This brings Fran Wilson in with a resetting job to do as Corney has only managed 5 from the 20 balls she has faced. The 10 over score is 24 for 2.
Norris returns and has Wilson playing down the wrong line to a ball that comes back late and is bowled for 5 at 36 for 3... seems it clipped the thigh pad and came back into the wickets. Out comes Charlie Dean at 36 for 3 in the 13th. These two need to be there a long time if Somerset are going to get anywhere near a defendable total.
At 49 for 3 in the 17th Lancashire introduce the firest spin of the day with Hannah Jones coming on at the MT Pavilion. Her first ball moves Somerset to 50 with Corney on 16 (33 balls) and Dean 9 (from 13). The crowd has grown into a fairly decent number. The club are hoping for 1500 and there were queues when the gates first opened this morning.
Dean thinks about coming up the wicket to Jones in the 19th, realises the ball isn't gonna be there and she tries to chop/cut too late and is bowled off a bottom edge. 55 for 4 and Katie Jones the U19 England keeper comes out and is off the mark first ball. For the 19th Lancashire go to spin from both ends with Emma Lamb on at the River end.
In the 23rd Jones gets Jones as Hannah spears it in and Katie steps back and is caught in front with nowhere to go and no bat on the ball, 65 for 5 with Jones LBW to Jones. This may not be a good day for the home side.
At the halfway point in the innings Somerset are 66 for 5 with Corney still there with 24 from 57 and Alex Griffiths not off the mark yet from the 8 balls she has faced. It's not looking great but it is downhill from here!!
In the 32nd over Corney takes a quick single to Potts off Collins. It was her call but Potts is better than she anticipated and throws the stumps down directly at the River end and she is runout for 35 at 90 for 6. In comes Wellington the heroine of the Surrey game with bat and ball... and she'll need to do something special here as well. The expectation is that she will not die wondering with the bat as she plays one way it seems. She may need to rein herself in against Hannah Jones who has bowled very well indeed taking 2 for 16 in her 8 and a half overs so far with every ball being on the money so far.
The three figures arrives in the 36th over as Amanda-Jade gets off the mark but with 14 overs left they really do have to get a 'cautious' move on to get themselves to somewhere they can make a game of this. We all hope it will be a low scoring game but something well over 150 is needed. Wellington sets her stall up by putting one into the car park next to the Caddyshack. It bounces near the second line of cars!! The next one goes to the same side and bounces off the advertising hoarding as she moves to 17 from 14 (she was 4 from 11). Alex also gets in on this and sends 2 balls into the boundary to take 22 off Norris' over and move the score to 127 for 6.
Wellington pushes it on but at 145 with 26 to her name she undercooks a boundary hit and is caught by Smale off Lamb going for another big one. 145 for 7 is better and a stand of 56 is definitely useful but there are over 10 overs to go. The thing is that bats have to go with what they know as nurdling about and getting out helps no one so all credit to Amanda-Jade for pushing it on but can the rest of the tail follow her lead and get this total up towards 200? A 20 ball innings with 3 sixes is a tough act to follow but Skelton comes out to try and help Griffiths on 37 from 52 keep the momentum going. The game is back on though as the 150 is up with 10 overs to go.
But Danni Collins has other ideas and she gets one through Griffiths just 4 short of her 50. She seemed to get bat on it but it went past and took the leg stump and it is 159 for 8. Her 46 came from 58 balls with 4 fours and 1 six. In comes Ellie Anderson with 9 overs to go and the task must now be to bat out the overs if possible.
Kate Cross finishes her bowling work at the end of the 44th with 10/2/27/2. Good work from her. Lancashire re-introduce Tara Norris from the MT end as Somerset move into the 170s and have to be looking to get this score over 200 if possible. Skelton (7) and Anderson (6) are doing it mostly in 1s and 2s but they are moving the score along. With 5 overs to go it is 175 for 8. However Emma Lamb has Anderson looking to pull the ball across the line and she is out LBW for 6 and it's 175 for 9. In comes Laura Jackson.
with 2 overs to go the last pair have moved the score on to 191 with some intelligent but not too ambitious shot selection. Chloe Skelton has been the main scorer but Laura Jackson has done her part in scoring off the loose ones and getting her partner on strike. Emma Lamb takes the last one with Somerset 4 short of 200 and the 10th wicket partnership at 21. It's Jackson who drives for four to bring up the 200 with 3 balls left to face and both carry their bat to finish on 205 for 9 with Skelton on 25 from 32 and Jackson with 13 from 16. A 30 run partnership for the last pair. A much better second half to the the innings than the first with Wellington changing the pace of the game.
It's a total to bowl at though it will be a great performance if the home side win this.
As the game resumes Ellie Anderson bowls from the MT to Eve Jones and Emma Lamb and early wickets are a 'must' for the home side to stay in this one. Laura Jackson opens her account from the River and both openers are tight at the begining with Lancashire only able to get 4 runs with only 1 off the bat.
After 5 overs Lancashire are having the same issue of getting the innings moving with only 15 on the board and 6 in extras. In the second 5 overs however, Eve Jones starts to move the ball about a little more as Anderson goes for a few more in her fourth. Charlie Dean is first change in the 10th from the River and that is followed by Wellington taking over from the pavilion end. A spinner with flight and movement off the pitch - interesting to watch given the lack of anything really at Taunton for the make spinners in our last game. It's spin from both ends then by the 10th over as Lancashire move past 50 with a four in the 13th courtesy of a very flighted delivery from the Australian. She is asking questions and isn't afraid of using the flight of the ball to keep the bats guessing. But no success so far unfortunately as the visitors move to 54 without loss at the end of the 13th.
Chloe Skelton is introduced in the 18th. Eve Lamb is dropped as she skies one. Heather Knight looked to go for the catch but then she left it for Jones who called for it and then didn't get there. Should have followed through but if the keeper calls with the big gloves you let her go for it I suppose. Lancashire go on. Lamb has looked in a little more trouble than Jones at the other end but neither has given their wicket away and this is moving into the visitor's hands inexorably as the 100 appears on the horizon and becomes a reality in Griffith's 21st over. The opening pair move to 101 without loss followed almost immedaitely by Eve Jones going to a 73 ball 50 (5 fours and 1 six) with the last 50 runs coming in 50 balls so the speed is ramping up. Halfway there with more than half the overs to come.
The pace of the move towards the win increases as both the openers are seeing it like a football and are willing to take chances to get to the boundary (because they have little to lose to be honest). Quite a few over the inner field shots start to appear and they are all working at the moment as Jones moves into the 70s while Lamb is 42 looking at a 50. They need 81 to win ads 125 for 0 and have 21 and a bit overs to get them. It's a long spell in the field for the home side with the loss looking pretty inevitable now.
Heather Knight gets the nod in the 26th as Lamb moves past 50. Wellington has a very good shout turned down in the 27th which was very very vclose catching Lamb under the thigh pad in front of leg stump. The Umpire must have believed it was going across because there was certainly no bat involved. However it is not Somerset's day and the game goes on with Lancashire passing 150 with a swatted four from Jones to the Caddyshack off Knight in the 28th.
Amanda-Jade makes up for the last unsuccesful attempt to dismiss Lamb by sending her on her way LBW with the first ball of the next over for 52 in a partnership of 151. In comes Katie Mack with 55 needed for the win and 22 overs to get them. Eve Jones is not waiting around though it seems as she moves into the 90s and takes her side's score past 160. Charlie Dean is re-introduced to try and stem the flow but it is probably too late for the overall game. It's making them work as hard as possible for the rest of the runs that is important for the home side one would imagine.
But she is out on 97 (from 11 balls with 14 fours and 1 six) to Ellie Anderson at 164 fo 2 caught off a bottom edge at short third man. She deserved a ton but it was a morale boost for Somerset at the same time. Little victories :-) Seren Smale is her replacement but she has a short partnership with Mack who is then out stumped by Jones off the bowling of Dean at 170 for 3. In comes Morris and Lanacashire move on towards the total (as the men's team lose in 3 days at the Oval).
Alex Griffiths comes back on at the end of the game when the deficit is 16 needed from 15 overs. Morris has moved to 16 from the 14 she has faced and Smale has taken 10 from her 11 deliveries. Somerset's fielding is still tenacious on the boundary even if the effort is pretty futile in the overall state of the game. It is still good to see that the team will not give it up easily.
Nevertheless, in the end, the 200 arrives in Wellington's last over as Smale finds the Ondaatje boundary and she finishes it off with a ball to go and 1`3.1 overs to spare as Lancashire move to 207 for 3 winning by 7 wickets.
A good game where the game was decided by the first half of the Somerset innings when they really did not push on and lost half their players for not a lot. However, a good game overall and certainly worth the visit with some excellent performances from both sides. On to the Thursday fixture at Taunton Vale against Essex.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:04:29:13:59:28 by Grockle.
I think it is a fair bet that there won’t be any objectionable sledging between Ellie and Laura as was the case in the league game yesterday where Bailey and Login were subject to some awful sledging , some concerning girlfriends which left me and the umpires sickened.
Something of a fight by the Somerset ladies. It is of course on Somerset YouTube.
[live.nvplay.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:04:27:12:53:34 by Des Platt.
That just seems insane. But then again what's new? I'll try and see if Spencer can give us the reasoning behind that one when he returns to the box.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:04:27:14:45:00 by Grockle.
I don't think anyone paid to get in today as tickets were being given away on-line at the end of last week in an effort to drum-up some sort of support.
It is an issue with the 'Life' membership isn't it? What do you buy? Do you buy 'Life' membership for the cricket as it exists at the time when you buy it or do you as you say pay to be a life member of Somerset in whatever form it will then become?
Can you 'extend' a life membership to include more stuff? Should you have to?
Still, women's cricket is pretty crappy so I won't miss much.
I have an old membership card from 2018, on that card it states “club & t20 member"
What seems to have happened when the club started allocated seating, they stopped putting it on the membership card.
Last year I decided to sort it out, I had some good help from a club employee, she found out if I ask at reception I could a ticket in seating “C” the cheap seats. A journalist said the club is penny-pinching.
I explained I am disabled and that seating is no good to me.
I was offered somewhere else to sit.
Sophie Luff 4 runs
Hannah Jones 4 runs
Fran Wilson bld Tara Norris
Emma Lamb lbw Amanda-Jade Wellington
Emma Corney
Amanda-Jade Wellington ct Seren Smale bld Emma Lamb
Amanda-Jade Wellington 6 runs
Alex Griffiths leg side wide ball
That's all folks.
I understand also that in order to squeeze everything they can out of spectators they are planning to charge for the use of lavatories in the ground, for entering onto the field at lunchtimes and for bringing your own food (ie sandwiches etc) into the ground. There are other potential money- spinners in the pipeline. No doubt.
Bring your own chair, they say.
Other charges? Where is that info from dilly? Not heard any of that.
Isn't the women's matches first class matches, if so it should be held on a first class ground!
They are being treated like it's a second II match.
LoL
Seventy-eight Seasons a Somerset Supporter