Manchester Originals eliminate Trent Rockets from the Group Stage

The 29^th women’s Hundred match was held yesterday between the Trent Rockets and Manchester Originals at the Trent Bridge, Nottingham, England. With this match, the Manchester Women ended their Hundred campaign.

The toss landed in favour of the Manchester Originals who chose to BOWL first. Rachel Priest and Sammy Jo Johnson once again stepped out as Trent Rockets’ openers to face the Manchester skipper Kate Cross’s bowling. The openers started slowly and carefully. They managed to survive until the power play. However, Priest was eliminated as soon as the power play ended. Sammy then continued her play with Captain Natalie Sciver but was caught out within the next three sets. Her total score was 33 runs off 20 balls which was the highest contribution to the team score. Following Johnson, the rest of the batting line-up did a good job by contributing enough runs. At the end of the inning, the Trent Rockets scored a decent but chasable score of 122 runs at a loss of 6 wickets. Johnson batted beautifully, scoring occasional fours and sixes. She played a key role however, after her elimination, the rest of the batting line-up took the responsibility of setting a good score to chase. A little more effort would have been helpful for the Trent Team. The Manchester bowlers also did a good job of not letting their chase score go too high. Though they were pressured a bit due to Sammy, yet her elimination by Alex Hartley was a big relief for the team.

The second inning was opened by Manchester’s star batswoman Lizelle Lee accompanied by Emma Lamb. These two women started and went on playing until the 13^th set after which a slight slip up led to Lamb being caught out. An outstanding partnership between the openers had come to an end as Emma walked back to the team bench with just 4 runs short of a half-century. Consequently, Lizelle continued her outstanding performance with another star batter from Manchester, Mignon du Preez. Both women started a new partnership and continued it till the end of the match. Lizelle finished the match in style by striking a fantastic four. The rest of the Manchester batting line-up did not even need to pad-up as these three women comfortably managed to chase the target within 18 sets. The Trent bowlers were outperformed brutally by Lizelle and Emma and then Mignon. The Manchester Originals Women’s Team had finished their Hundred campaign with this commendable victory over the Trent Rockets Women team.