Upsets on Yorkshire Women & Girls League's opening weekend

After the first round of league matches, the Yorkshire’s Women & Girls Cricket League table has a fresh look to it.

While it would be foolish to read too much into results after a single round of games, this was a blow for the newer teams.

Defeats for Sessay, Wrenthorpe and Doncaster Town in the same week are rare. To give you some context, Sessay didn’t lose a league game all of last season while Wrenthorpe lost twice and Doncaster Town three times.

Sessay Emeralds’ home defeat against Saxton by 10 runs was courtesy of a dramatic batting collapse. Chasing 167 to win, they were 149-4 as Courtney Gounden was dismissed for 77. Incredibly, that became 156 all out with Izzy Fisher (4-9) and Ellie Harrison (3-27) the match-winners for Saxton.

Wrenthorpe’s loss to Yapham by seven wickets saw them bundled out for 156 with Amy Brown-Carrera (56) top-scoring. Robyn Dennington (3-29) and Kat Young (3-34) doing most of the damage.

In reply, Yapham (in their first season of YW&GCL Premier Division) cruised to 157.2 off 17.4 overs with Hannah Buck’s 89 not out the catalyst.

Sheffield Collegiate picked up an impressive 21pt win away at Doncaster Town after choosing to bat first. Dismissed for 173, Matilda White carried her bat for an unbeaten 57. Daisy Bayes (4-35) and DTCC captain Shell Styring (3-37) got the bulk of the wickets for the home side.

Maddie Blackburn’s 3-11 up front included bowling overseas Kate Duffield for 6 to leave Doncaster Town 25-3. They rallied but Hollie Purcell (2-26) and Alice Dixon (2-9) were among the wickets as the Sheffield side won by 60 runs.

The final South Yorkshire fixture saw Tickhill win by 77 runs at Rockingham Colliery. The visitors racked up 245-7 with opener Hannah Cusack hitting 77 off 67 balls.

Rockingham used nine bowlers with Harsimran Kaur Kang (3-42) and Sarah Peet (2-20) the lead wicket takers. At 64-2, the run chase was on but Amy Lovatt’s dismissal led to a dramatic slump at 99-6.

To their credit, the home side battled back to 168 with a number of batters getting starts with Betty Bell 37 not out in the middle order.

There will be twists and turns aplenty but as an opening round of league matches goes, unusually it sees Yapham (22), Tickhill (22) and Sheffield Collegiate (21) occupying the top three.