After playing last week in 30 degree heat the Huskies had to adapt back to this years normal of 15 degrees and rain tonight at St Albans, faced with an artificial wicket for the second time this year with the bounce taking a bit of getting used to.

We won the toss and asked them to set a total, a formula that has worked well for us most of the season. St Albans made a strong start with their strongest two batters opening and they quickly took advantage with powerful shots through the legside. Bea in a rare bowling outing was expensive but picked up a smart caught and bowled, whilst Esme in an equally rare outing with the gloves kept neatly. The first pair had put on 38/1 which had set St Albans up well. The Huskies started to regain some control in pair two with Annabel, Milly and Esme proving hard to get away, Esme picked up a wicket with her bowling looking threatening throughout. We continued to keep picking up wickets during pair three and four with Dorothy picking up 2 more to add to her total for the season one of which to an excellent catch from Olivia, whilst the fielding was sharp to execute a couple of runouts. St Albans finished on a net score of 266 which felt chaseable, albeit we'd need to bat well. Great figures again for Dorothy with 2 wickets for just 7 runs.

The opening batters that has served St Albans so well also opened the bowling and were just as impressive with the ball, picking up 3 wickets ( one of which was a runout) In amongst it all Olivia played some delightful shots with successive fours , its noticeable how much her batting has come on this year which should stand her in good stead for next season. Esme and Sophie came next and like Asha before them they struggled to time the ball of the artificial wicket with the bowling slow but accurate and the bounce much higher than we've been used to all season, a couple more wickets fell and at halfway the Huskies has it all to do with a score of 40/5, meaning we needed to score 48 of the next 50 balls. Annabel and Milly started well running hard and picking up 15 off their first three overs, before St Albans brought it back with two further wickets for the cost of just 3 more. This left our last pair of Bea and Dorothy the self styled 'chaos twins' needing 39 runs. The two of them clearly came out with a plan - Bea was backing up halfway down the pitch and running byes every time the wicket keeper fumbled, she also hit the ball incredibly had scoring two fours and several twos, to top score with 19 , whilst Dorothy supported well running everything super hard. The atmosphere whilst they were batting was electric with both them and the rest of the squad believing that they could actually get the result, unfortunately despite a valiant and extremely entertaining effort they fell short with St Albans picking up three more wickets to seal the deal.

A really good evening especially watching the fun with the last pair, and whilst its a shame to lose the main thing is to enjoy the game and certainly tonight brought alot of enjoyment for all. Thanks to all the girls and to the parents who came along to support.

I hope to rearrange the game vs OA's that we had to call off due to weather and we may look to play some friendlies later in the summer so please keep an eye on pitchero for any further updates