Rain or Shine: Pudsey St. Lawrence Women and St. Chad’s double header

I’d put a call out on social media a couple of weeks ago to find out what women’s games were on that week, as the weather had been poor and quite a few weekend fixtures were in real doubt.

About a week later, Paul Priestley popped a reply up about a double fixture between Pudsey St. Lawrence and St. Chad’s Broomfield to be played at Adwalton Cricket Club and then a few days after that, he confirmed the date.

I’ve heard some good things from various people about both clubs, having a vibrant community around them and actively publicising what they do on social media and their websites.

Tracking the rain at Adwalton

Plans made, Sunday arrived and before I set off, I checked the weather and was rather disturbed to see the mention of rain just before the start of the games, and then near the end of the day.

Chris had told me that the first ball was at 1pm, but Play-Cricket was indicating a midday start. Not wanting to miss kick-off, I started my travels just before 10am to make the hour’s drive across the other side of Bradford, knowing that at worst I would be monstrously early.

I left home in bright sunshine, with hopes that the weather forecast was wrong – which has often been the case over the past year, however, as I approached the climb up Pool Bank towards Leeds/Bradford Airport, a few spots of the wet stuff splattered down on the windscreen.

‘No problem’ I thought, it just looks like a very light drizzle, with the windscreen wipers dealing with the few drops every few seconds.

Ten minutes later and the drizzle was more persistent, with the wipers going constantly to clear the screen. ‘It will pass soon’ I thought.

By the time I drove through the gates of Adwalton Cricket Club, any cheery thoughts I had that the rain would stop were only holding on by fingernails at the back of my mind.

Chris had, of course, got it completely right and I had arrived around two hours before the first game was due to start, so I sat in the car looking out at a very rainy scene, wondering if the games could be played and if not, what I would do instead.

As uncertainty bubbled its way in to my mind, I messaged the clubs to see if they had cancelled the games. Then as midday approached another car appeared and what appeared to be one of the players got out, just at the moment the heavens really opened.

Biblical to perfect

The player strode confidently to the middle of the ground, although I thought that Moses probably needed a call to help part the water at this point. As she came back to her car, I got out and introduced myself, asking if the game was going ahead.

It turned out that the ground wasn’t too bad, but a decision would be made when the other team turned up. As the minutes ticked by, more players arrived, and the rain started to lighten.

With over a half an hour before first ball, the wind had picked up and had helped to blow the rainclouds away. The scene had gone from biblical to almost perfect, if just a little cold.

Relieved that the games were going ahead, thoughts of other fixtures disappeared, and I went for an explore around the compact ground. Halfway around I was approached by a gentleman getting the ground ready, who turned out to be Chris.

A quick chat had, I resumed my walk and bumped into the umpire for the day and had another informative conversation about the games he had officiated this past week. 

. . .

Adwalton Cricket Club is nestled in a housing estate, with houses within touching distance all around the ground.

. . .

As you drive through the gates, the large modern double-storey clubhouse is on your right, the scoreboard is on the far boundary on your right, and three sides of the ground are enclosed with huge nets to stop the ball from heading into the gardens of the houses encircling the club.

The first game was a Women’s Club Plate T20 game between Pudsey and St. Chad’s. I headed out to a spot on the boundary, waiting for the teams to take to the field. As they appeared, there were still a few spots of drizzle falling, a leaden sky, and a brisk wind.

Pudsey St. Lawrence won the toss and decided to bat first, and I was really looking forward to seeing how good these teams really were – and I wasn’t going to be disappointed.

The home team started brightly, scoring four in the first over, eight in the second, 11 in the third, and seven in the fourth – but crucially, losing their first wicket as Matilda Potter was bowled for six.

Emily Hall joined Megan Fleming at the centre to form a wonderful partnership that would help build the backbone of their total.

By the drinks break in the tenth over, Pudsey were seemingly free-scoring, hitting a minimum of seven runs an over and in the ninth, had put a massive 19 runs on the scoreboard.

In the 17th over, Megan misjudged an attempted big hit and quick thinking by wicketkeeper Hannah Keys saw the St. Chad’s captain whip the bails off to dismiss her for 67 runs from just 47 balls. The Pudsey captain had scored 11 fours and one six in an impressive knock.

By the end of Pudsey’s innings, Emily Hall had struck 40 runs from 56 balls, hitting three fours.

All in all, the home team had managed to reach 144 for two; a really challenging total that would fully test St. Chad’s Broomfield.

Nets billowing like sails

The heavy grey sky was brightening up a little as the visitors took to the field for their response. The gusty wind was making the nets hung between the poles billow like the mainsails on tea-clippers, the base of the poles on one side seemingly sitting in a sea of bright yellow buttercups.

. . .

The first over saw St. Chad’s score six, but disaster in the second as they lost their first wicket and scored only three runs. Could this have been an early blow for the visitors that would mean they would fall short?

. . .

Sophie Jacobson and Steph Robinson were to ensure that wouldn’t be the case.

Over the next ten overs, Steph hit 38 runs from 35 balls, to ensure that St. Chad’s were ticking off the runs required, before being bowled by Emily Dickson.

However, it was Sophie Jacobson that really shone with the bat, reaching an unbeaten 73 runs, and fittingly scoring 11 in the final over to see the visitors win the game with one ball remaining.

What a fantastic game of cricket, with both teams on their game. St. Chad’s Broomfield now progress to round two of the Club Plate T20, where they could face teams like Durham City, North Leeds, and Hartlepool CC.

There was a short gap between the games, so I headed to grab a bite to eat and a drink, and change the memory cards in the camera.

As I sat in the car, I was amazed by the change in the weather…a few hours before it had looked like a dismal November day and now, with the sun daring to peak out from behind the broken cloud cover, it was starting to feel a bit more summer-like.

Take two: League cricket

The second game scheduled to start at 4:30pm was a West Yorkshire Women & Girls Cricket League, Archer Cup Group B game.

I had already spotted that these teams were in the same league as Harrogate CC Women, so there is the potential of covering them both when they travel to Harrogate later this season.

St. Chad’s won the toss and elected to field. Matilda Potter and Megan Fleming took to the field for Pudsey, but the heroics of the first game weren’t to be repeated. Megan was bowled for 13 in the fifth over, and Matilda caught for 12 in the eighth.

Imaan Effendi was bowled out in the ninth over having scored ten runs, but then a good partnership between Emily Hall and Anishka Nayak was only broken when Emily retired in the 17th over.

The home team lost a couple more wickets on their way to a pretty respectable 118 for five in their allotted 20 overs. Maybe it hadn’t been the near 150-run haul of the first game, but scoring pretty much two-a-ball is a good marker to set.

St. Chad’s on a high from their first win, were seemingly in the mood to chase down the total.

Sophie Jacobson (19), Rachael Jones (30), Steph Robinson (31), and Emily Patten-Hall (26) all pushed the score to the brink of victory, with captain Hannah Keys and Laura Hutchinson hitting the final few runs in the 17th over to get the visitors over the line as the clouds started to gather and the first spots of rain began to fall once more.

The visitors scored 122 for three in just over sixteen overs and they won by seven wickets.

The win sees St. Chad’s Broomfield earn nine points and sit at the top of Group B in the Archer Cup, with Harrogate CC in second. Pudsey St. Lawrence earned four points that sees them move into third place.

It had been a long day of entertaining cricket, that in typical British weather had seen pretty much four seasons in one day.

Earlier, when speaking to Chris, he had said that Pudsey’s team was made up from players that were nearly all under 18 years old. If this group remains together over the coming years, then they will grow to be a real force in their league.

St. Chad’s Broomfield are also a fantastic team, with real strength in depth. They showed that they were comfortable both at bat and in the field, with some impressive throws from the outfield resulting in direct hits of the wickets to put pressure on the opposition running between the creases.

County cricket certainly has a good crop of players coming through to choose from and the future of the game is indeed very bright.

📸 Match Photos

Thanks to Mark for his observations and images from Adwalton Cricket Club.

Here are his other travel articles on Cricket Yorkshire.

To check out more of his photography, you can visit caughtlight.com or he’s @caughtlight on Twitter/X.

There’s also the Caught Light Photography Facebook page.

I also highly recommend his blog called Leica Moments that include days out at grounds around North Yorkshire.