Gunn fires Notts to success

Jenny Gunn © Getty Images

England's Jenny Gunn is writing a diary for ecb.co.uk during the 2007 summer. Follow her exclusively here on ecb.co.uk

Nottinghamshire had a nice little trip down to Taunton for our County Championship campaign. Our first game was against Kent, and after pushing them all the way two weeks ago, but losing, we were looking to get one back on them.

After a delayed start due to rain I won the toss and chose to field. We were missing our opening bowler Nikki Shaw who had something called a graduation at Uni, so we had a new opening partnership with Dizz (Nicky Myers) and Jazz (Jasmine Titmus).

We got off to the best possible start with Jazz removing both openers and then myself picking up the wicket of Charlotte Edwards as we reduced them to 53 for five.

Enter Emily Drumm at number seven as she and Lydia made batting look easy with both bringing up their fifties just before the end of their innings. Kent finished on 153 for six.

Going out to bat we were quite confident but no one was expecting what happened next. I won't talk too much about our batting as, to be fair, we didn't bat well or for very long.

Some poor batting and some very good bowling by Marsha Davies and Lynsey Askew saw us bowled out for an embarrassing 17. I say no more.

Nikki Shaw © Getty Images

The next day we were up against Sussex. I'm still fuming with my team for fining me for what happened at the toss. I tossed the coin and they called heads, choosing to field. For some reason I thought we had won the toss and were fielding, so we had to go back and ask, which resulted in a big fine for me.

We had a small shuffle around of the batting order as I went in to open and Abbey Hawkins went five with Nikki Shaw back at four. We didn't quite get off to the start that we wanted, losing a wicket in the very first over and were soon two down. I was a little bit relieved when we got past 17 though, as were all our team.

Nic and I were just starting to form a good partnership before Nic thought she was Flo Jo for a minute and got herself run out at the bowlers end with a direct hit. The game quickly turned around and from 47 for two we were 52 for five.

From there Sussex gave me singles and bowled at the other end. Vikki Vallance did really well to stay there even with all the stick we were getting about how slow we were scoring.

We finished with 109, with myself scoring a slow 48. Their three spinners did a great job with Holly Colvin taking 1-18 off 10 overs, Connie (Nicholson) took 0-8 off 10 overs and Charlie Russell had 3-11 off nine overs.

We knew this was going to be tough to defend but we were all up for it. As usual Nic had the first over and Dizz had the second up the hill. Scoring was again slow, but it didn't seem to trouble them too much.

Caroline Atkins © Getty Images

We decided to slow the bowling down, with Lily Brown and Kate Robson (Muppet) coming on. We had a quick rain break, which allowed us to go off and re-group for a while.

Coming back on Lily got the breakthrough, bowling Sarah Taylor for 12. I have never seen Lily so pumped and it was great to see, especially coming from a 15-year-old.

Then in the very next over Muppet trapped Kate Oakenfold leg before wicket for nought.

Crispy (Alexia Walker) and Shaggy (Caroline Atkins) formed another good partnership before Crispy clipped one to square leg where Vikki Vallance took a great diving catch low to her left.

I was a little shocked at how good a catch that was considering a few overs back a ball tickled to Vikki at cover and somehow she missed it, and it went through her legs for one. I think my three-year-old cousin could have stopped it.

Apart from that one incident it is the best I have ever seen us bowl and field. It got even better when Jazz took a great catch running backwards to catch the ball over her right shoulder.

In the end they got the runs with three overs to spare. It was a great effort and I couldn't have asked any more from our team.

Our last game was against Lancashire. This was such a big game as Lancs needed to beat us convincingly to stay up. After another rain delayed start I lost the toss again and we were put into bat.

Again we lost an early wicket in the first over. I got off the mark - even if it was quite lucky as I tried to leave the ball and somehow it ended up at third man. The rain came after 1.4 overs with us standing on one run for two wickets.

We didn't go back on, which resulted in us staying up.

Well done girls, and if you are ever quiet again on the pitch you will all be fined as I have never heard a team go from not saying a word to never shutting up.

Well done to all the teams that won, especially Kent for winning it back-to-back years and to Warwickshire who got promoted last year to Division Three and won that and are now in Division Two.

Hopefully the weather will now hot up and we will have no more rain for the international series against New Zealand in August.