Women’s XI and Softball Fixtures & Results
Effingham entered into the Surrey Women’s Cricket League for the first time in 2023, as well as fielding a team for the Central Smash IT Softball League. The following are fixtures & results of the 1st XI (unless stated to be softball):
14 May – Cranleigh (a) – Cranleigh won by 98 runs
25 May – Softball Festival @ Merstham
1 June – Westcott (Softball, a) – Effingham win by 74 runs
4 June – Malden Wanderers (h) – Malden won by 7 wickets
18 June – Wimbledon (h) – Wimbledon won by 10 wickets
22 June – Dorking (Softball, h) – Effingham win by 62 runs
2 July – Malden Wanderers (a) – Malden won by 9 wickets
9 July – Walton on Thames (a) – Effingham won by 7 wickets
9 July – Softball Festival @ Dorking – Effingham overall winners
20 July – Dorking (Softball, a) – Dorking won by 50 runs
23 July – Wimbledon (a) – Wimbledon won by 183 runs
6 August – Walton on Thames (h) – Walton on Thames conceded
13 August – Cranleigh (h) – Cranleigh won by 8 wickets
20 August – Softball Festival @ Chiddingfold
28 August – Richmond (T20, a) – Richmond won by 40 runs
Match Reports
Smashing Saturday For Ships’ Softball & Hardball Sides
Saturday, 9 July was a winning day for the women’s team, which simultaneously fielded two different sides – one visiting Walton-on-Thames for a hardball friendly, whilst the other travelled to Dorking to compete in the SMASH IT softball festival.
At Walton, the Ships picked up their first hardball victory of the season, winning by 7 wickets. Annie and Liv both took their first wickets in women’s cricket, and Frankie’s 2/33 was joined by Ellie and Alexie in adding to their season totals, as Walton set the score of 180/8. A second innings 122 run partnership between Ellie (49) and Abi (30*), and a quickfire 15 from Georgie P saw the team home with 5 balls remaining.
Meanwhile, in Dorking, the softball side were crowned winners, after facing three different teams across the afternoon, starting with the hosts. After being set a target of 47, opening batting pair of Sarah and Pat sent the team on their way scoring 17 runs, followed by the young pairing of Bella and Nyang’ara with 13. The runs continued to come, as they recorded a total of 72 without losing a wicket.
Chasing a target of 40 against Ottershaw, a solid run of batting partnerships was rounded off by Erica and Emma, who posted 14 runs without loss to set the winning total of 54. The final fixture against Leatherhead saw the Ships be restricted to a total of 39 runs, but excellent fielding saw three crucial wickets taken off the final two pairs by Imari (2) and Rachel (1), reducing Leatherhead’s score late on to 18 runs and sealing a clean sweep of victories.
SMASH IT Softball Festival @ Chiddingfold
Amidst some late team withdrawals, Sunday 20 August’s softball festival at Chiddingfold was able to go ahead, with the Ships facing the hosts, and Woking & Horsell.
ECC opened the event against W&H, where a close result saw Effingham’s 232/5 beaten by W&H’s 237/2. We then played eventual winners Chiddingfold, who got 266/1 to Effingham’s 234/2.
A great opportunity to continue improving skills with both bat and ball, we demonstrated some good work in the field against two good sides and continued to show great commitment to developing as a team.
