ODIs not quite going for us

23 August 2007

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

Friday August 17, and we were back at the Home of Women’s cricket in Taunton. Lottie was again not fully fit to play so Nic was captain.

We lost the toss and they chose to field. We got off to a good start as Nic got Kember caught behind in the third over.

McGlashan and Bates had a good partnership. They hit over the top well and played very attacking cricket. The partnership was broken when McGlashan was bowled through the gate with a ball that just nipped back enough for 34.

A good bowling change saw Holly get us back into the game, she took the wickets of their two danger players, Mason and Tiffen. Taking wickets at that stage of the game reduced the run-rate considerably.

Charlie Russell, who was making her full ODI debut, bowled really well and claimed her first wicket, which couldn’t have come at a better time as she took the wicket of Bates with a great catch at long off by Shaggy, (Caroline Atkins).

New Zealand finished with 225 for seven with Holly the pick of the bowlers taking 3-36.

We didn’t get off to a great start as we lost Sarah for 11 with some great fielding by Tiffen at extra cover. Tails was next to go, which was a shame as she was looking good. I hit the ball back straight and the bowler managed to get a hand on it and knock the ball onto the stumps.

It went to the thirrd umpire who gave her out. It was a brave call as looking back on the replays it was a very tight call.

I think most of our team learnt a new rule today. I went for a quick single and the fielder hit the stumps and it went to the third umpire. Looking at that replay I was miles out but apparently there is a rule where both ends of the bail have to be dislodged. So by the time this had happened I was in.

It’s quite strange that if we weren’t on TV that day, Tails would have probably been in and I would have been given out.

Lydia and I created a good partnership and you could see the pressure starting to get to the other team. Mason got the break through they were looking for, bowling Lydia.

The game kept swinging both ways and we got it to a run a ball before I chipped one back to Bates who took a simple caught and bowled chance to dismiss myself for 73.

We had two more run outs losing Shaggy for 32 and Beth for 14, which pushed it in NZ’s favour. We ended up being bowled out for 204, falling 21 runs short.

Our second ODI at Stratford was called off due to the amount of rain that hit the night before. They did a great job to try and get the ground ready for our game and to say it was a badly affected area of the floods they did a brilliant job.

So it was off to Derby for our day/night match, which sort of felt like being at home as it’s in the Midlands. We had Lottie back with us today and she won the toss and batted first.

Sarah and myself didn’t get us off to the best of starts as Sarah was got for one and I ran myself out for 11. From there on though we never looked back and some great hitting by Lottie and Tails helped us score 240.

Tails hit another 100 and Lottie finished on 95 not out. We thought that would be a decent total to defend and were quite confident going out on to the field.

Well I don’t think we were quite ready for what hit us. They came at us all guns blazing. I’m quite happy that Lottie said put long-off back instead of putting an extra cover out as I suggested, as the very next ball Bates was caught by Beth at long off (good call Lott).

Well that was the last wicket for quite a while as Mason and McGlashan carried on the hard hitting and their run rate was around 10 an over in the first few overs.

The run rate dropped very slightly when Holly came onto bowl but still they scored runs freely. We got Mason out for 81 but McGlashan scored her highest ODI score of 97 to finish the game with 15 overs to spare. Not the best game we have ever played to be honest.

We have to pick it up pretty quickly for the next games, which are back to back in Blackpool over the Bank holiday weekend.