Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club Girls U13B v Harpenden CC - Under 13 Girls-2 on Mon 16 Jun 2025 at 18:00
St Albans Cricket Club Won by 36 runs

Match report St Albans U13s 95/2 (net score 284) v Harpenden U13s 59/4 (net score 242) - St Albans won by 36 runs

St Albans, April 2025, 8am: Much-loved, former St Albans girls’ coach John Rudlin paces in his kitchen. He’s been awake since 4am with just one thought “when will it arrive?” He checks his inbox for the fifth time today – nothing. “Time for another cuppa”, he thinks. As he gets up to fill the kettle PING! “That must be IT!”, he exclaims. He’s not wrong, the St Albans fixtures for 2025 have arrived. He frantically scans the email until he finds what he’s looking for: St Albans v Harpenden, Sandpit Lane, 6pm, 16th June 2025 (yes, I know this is the rearranged fixture, but this paragraph is already too wordy!) he grabs his red bingo marker and SPLAT goes the pen on his month-by-month calendar. A fixture not to be missed.

Fast-forward two months and here we are. A contrived toss between St Albans and Harpenden due to one of the oppo’s players needing to leave early meant that St Albans batted first. Captain Freya marshalled her youthful team (75% of whom are year 7 girls and included a last minute replacement of Constance with Eleanor - thanks Matt!), gave a rousing pep talk reminding the girls of the importance of this fixture to John, and strode out to bat with Maya. Charlotte’s dad, Steve, kindly umpiring in his first match after being volunteered by James, takes his spot at square leg.

Maya faced first the first ball and showed good technique but the oppo’s opening bowler is too good for her, taking her wicket twice in the first three overs. A great response from her and Freya who proceed to score off every ball following the loss of the second wicket with some excellent running, especially off wides the keeper could not stop. 17 runs scored.

The second pair, Eve and Kaya continue to show excellent judgment, running virtually everything which is hit off the square (and some balls which aren't), putting pressure on the fielders, 19 runs scored.

Next up, Charlotte 2.0 and Eleanor. Charlotte 1.0 is someone who immediately looks the other way when the question “who wants to pad up?” is asked in the nets on Sunday mornings. Luckily for us we had Charlotte 2.0 who had stolen Charlotte V1.0’s dinner money, rubbed sand in her hair, told the head of year that she was watching TikTok videos on her phone in double history this morning and crucially, taken her cricket kit and arrived at the wicket ready for action. She pulled two identical shots to the deep square leg boundary scoring her first fours for the U13s. Her and Eleanor ran brilliantly between the wickets and scored today’s highest pairs total of 29.

Finally Jess and Florence. Who, inspired by the previous pair, ran well with clear calling and Jess – playing her first cricket match of the season – scored three identical boundaries to the fine leg boundary. St Albans finished on a net score of 284 for the loss of only 2 wickets. An amazing effort.

For the Harpenden innings Freya was desperate not to hear the cry of “BOWLER’S NAME?” at the end of every over from the scorer so she set out the order of bowlers until the seventeenth over. She was asked the question “Why stop there?”, (SHRUG) was the response.

The rotation of bowlers worked well; Freya, Kaya, Charlotte, Eleanor and Jess all bowled tidily and restricted the first two pairs to a total of 22 runs. The absence of any wickets meant that the oppo were still just in the match. Eve, however, had other ideas. She knew that an over can change a match and as she stood at the top of her run-up about to start the 11th over, she dreamed of memorable overs, some taking place before her parents were an item: Andy Caddick taking four in an over v West Indies at Lord’s in 2000, virtually every over in the 2005 Ashes, Carlos Braithwaite getting his name remembered in 2016 …

Ball 1: One bye which went through the keeper.

Ball 2: The batter hit the ball and called for a single. Eve, collected the ball, shied at the stumps but missed – buzzers! “Let that be your warning,” Eve muttered. “I won’t miss a second time”. Eve 0, oppo 1.

Ball 3: The batter hits the ball and calls for a single, Eve collected cleanly in her follow through and threw the ball at the non-striker’s stumps for a direct hit! “See, I told you so!” Eve 1, oppo 1.

Ball 4: Dot.

Ball 5: Keeper Freya slightly fumbled Eve’s delivery behind the stumps, the batters called for a single, Freya grabbed the ball and whipped off the bails. Eve 2, oppo 1.

What an over! But Eve wasn’t done yet. In the next, the batters attempted to scamper a run from a wide delivery from Florence, Eve collected the ball at backstop and from 5 metres away, threw a direct hit at the striker's end! Eve 3, oppo 1. Smiles all round.

Harpenden struggled to recover from that and with Maya taking her first wicket for the U13s in over 17, the oppo finished on 242. Victory to St Albans and a very happy John Rudlin.

Batter of the match as voted for by the opposition: Charlotte

Bowler of the match as voted for by the opposition: Freya

St Albans Cricket Club Girls U13B Batting
Player NameRunsOutB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
38
95
(20.0 overs)		       
Maya Lone8 2 17 47.06
Freya Witty2 0 8 25.00
Eve Gee4 0 9 44.44
Kaya Hawkins4 0 16 25.00
Charlotte Wright16 0 15 2 106.67
Eleanor Richards2 0 10 20.0
Jessica Edwards16 0 12 3 133.33
Florence Westcott4 0 13 30.77

Harpenden CC - Under 13 Girls-2 Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Millie3.0014114.004.67
Annabel3.0112112.004.00
Freya3.001700.005.67
Tala2.001200.006.00
Heidi3.001400.004.67
Arissa2.00900.004.50
Mollica2.00300.001.50
Edda2.001000.005.00

Harpenden CC - Under 13 Girls-2 Batting
Player nameROutB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
31
59 (20.0 overs)		     
Millie1 0 16 6.25
Tala10 0 21 47.62
Mollica3 0 15 20.0
Heidi0 0 10 0
Edda3 1 11 27.27
Annabel10 2 14 1 71.43
Freya4 1 13 30.77
 0 0

St Albans Cricket Club Girls U13B Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Freya Witty3.01300.001.00
Kaya Hawkins3.00700.002.33
Charlotte Wright3.00900.003.00
Eleanor Richards3.011100.003.67
Jessica Edwards2.00700.003.50
Florence Westcott2.00800.004.00
Eve Gee2.00800.004.00
Maya Lone2.00515.002.50