North Midd lose nail-biter to local rivals

Maisie's first ever ball in league cricket was the last ball of our innings, and she needed to hit it for six for us to win. A very tough ask. She can be proud of scrambling two, and she can also take a lot from her courageous display as our stand-in wicket-keeper, with our regular keepers both unable to play.

But in truth, we probably should have won. We took more wickets that North London and we scored many more runs off the bat; the problem is, we gave away more extras.

In addition to Maisie, there are many others who can take a lot of pride in what they did. Lakeesha and Anna opened the bowling tidily and cleared out North London's top three batters; they then partnered again to score 40+ runs to take us to the very brink of victory. Jasmine opened her North Midd bowling account with two wickets (including that of a Middlesex player) for a measly three runs. A special word for u11 starlet Scarlett, who took her first u13 wicket from a very tidy spell. When it was our innings, Diya opened the batting watchfully, but by the end of her innings was peppering the boundary. Amani also batted well. The fielding was generally of a very good standard, and everyone played their part.

So lots of positives, but this team is good enough to win these top of the table games. And so next time, we need to build on the good things we did, and learn from our mistakes.