Friday Headlines

the weekly newsletter from EHS

EHS Firmly on the Cricket Map

Senior School

13 May 2022

It was with excitement and a little trepidation that the EHS U15 team of cricketers set off to Edgbaston Cricket Ground on Monday to compete in the prestigious Lady Taverners schools competition. As relative newcomers to the world of cricket the girls were, by their own admission, underdogs from the outset and so were absolutely thrilled to make it through to the Midlands regional finals. Here, Sixth Form student and aspiring cricket journalist Polly Starkie reports on an exciting and nail-biting day. 

If you had told me that at the start of the day when we walked into the Indoor Centre at Edgbaston Cricket Ground that we would end up as finalists, I would not have believed you! This is not because I doubted our team but merely because of the opposition, whether that was by reputation or what we could see from the warms ups as their bowlers clattered the stumps, they looked formidable and far more experienced than our side. We were the underdogs who reached the final!

Our first group game was against Shrewsbury School, a side we knew were going to be tough opposition. Our preconceptions were confirmed when we were bowled out for 28 runs – lower order batter, Sofia Raiye, scoring some crucial runs towards the end. It was going to be a tough job to defend our low total however, in true EHS spirit, we were up for the challenge and held our heads high. Maia Kanaganatram stepped up to the wicket-keeping role having never done it before and defended the back wall well to stop extra runs for the opposition. Alessandra Belli took two wickets in the innings, Izzy Curry got a hat-trick and, two excellent direct-hit runouts by Sanjana Raghavendran meant that miraculously, we won by two runs.

Carrying the momentum of our unexpected win, we then faced Hereford Cathedral School. Again, we batted first and chose to keep the same batting order. This paid off as Izzy and Poppy Couzens built a good partnership and we managed to score more runs than the previous game. Hereford were extremely powerful with the bat and despite some incredible run outs, Hereford won. 

We didn’t let this result affect our day and we moved on to our next game which was against Rushcliffe Spencer Academy. This time, we bowled first, Izzy starting with a double wicket maiden over and a well-deserved catch for Poppy. Throughout the match, we demonstrated great tactical awareness in all areas of the game and our communication improved. This was very evident in our batting innings where we ran between the wickets very well and Ishmah Mir and Izzy held a strong partnership to successfully lead us to another win which qualified us for the semi-finals.

In the semi-final, we faced Kings School, Worcester, a school we knew wouldn’t be an easy feat. We bowled first and this was really a team effort! Poppy shone, taking two catches and doing two great run outs. With the help of Alessandra and Kate Stockton both taking a catch and Izzy’s amazing run out, we managed to restrict Kings to 70 - a total we were satisfied with as they were such a big hitting side. 71 was our target and was the highest total we had been set so far so it was not going to be easy. In the field, we could see that Kings were very experienced and they had quite a few fast bowlers. Regardless of this, we batted very well especially from Izzy, and credit must go to Poppy who hit the winning runs in an extremely tense last over! 

Ahead of the final, we saw St Helen’s & St Catherine’s play in the semi-final and we saw how clean their fielding was and their great running between the wickets. We headed into the final confident and absolutely buzzing to have made it. We bowled first and our success came in the form of run outs. Maia, Kate, Izzy, Ish and Alessandra all managed to run out key batters and Poppy and Alessandra both took incredible catches. The first innings concluded with 87 runs to win – the highest total we had been set. St Helen’s & St Catherine’s bowling was just too good, but Sofia persevered with the batting and was the last batter out. 

Team EHS played so well throughout the day and performed beyond all expectations for their first time in the tournament. It was an extremely enjoyable day, and we were all chuffed to take home a silver medal! Hopefully next year we will continue with our success and maybe even take home a gold medal. 

Polly Starkie

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