Paige Schofield continued her impressive early season form as South East Stars beat Sunrisers by four wickets at Lord’s to record their first win of this season’s Charlotte Edwards Cup.
The winter arrival from Southern Vipers has excelled with the bat in the Rachel Heyhoe Flint Trophy but here it was her 3-24 ball in hand which set the visitors on the road to victory at the home of cricket.
Her efforts supported by 1-13 from Phoebe Franklin restricted Sunrisers to 132-8 despite promising contributions from Eva Gray, 34 not out, and Jo Gardner 24.
It never looked enough, and Stars led by 38 from skipper Bryony Smith and 30 from Franklin got home with an over to spare. Grace Scrivens was the pick of the home attack with 2-22.
Former South African captain Dane Van Niekerk and Mady Villiers formed a new opening pair for Sunrisers after they elected to bat and for a while they prospered, taking three fours off England quick Freya Davies’s second over.
However, both had their stumps spreadeagled in the space of eight balls by Scholfield and Franklin (1-13) respectively as the early progress stalled.
Soon after, Scrivens in at four was run out for one. To make matters worse, subsequently, Amara Carr was also run out, which was down to catastrophic running as she and Cordelia Griffith had to swerve each other mid-pitch.
Griffith holed out in the deep from a Scholfield full toss and when Florence Miller fell almost immediately afterwards Sunrisers were in tatters at 64-6.
That they posted any sort of score was down to a 48-stand between Jo Gardner and Eva Gray, the former clubbing Claudie Cooper back over her head for the only six of the innings, while Gray mixed aggression with finesse in hitting four boundaries.
A third comical runout where both players ended up at the same end brought the stand to a halt and 132 looked a little shy.
Smith fresh from her 83 in defeat to Vipers on Tuesday soon took up the chase, striking Gray for three fours in the fourth over of the visitors’ reply.
Last year’s top run scorer for Stars, Aylish Cranstone was less successful, trapped Lbw sweeping Villiers’ first ball, but that brought Capsey to the crease and the England youngster was immediately into her stride, belting one back over the bowler’s head before caressing a second four to the cover boundary.
Kelly Castle was savagely cut and then driven for four in the next over by the teenager as 61 were rattled up in the powerplay, but having raced to 24 in eight balls, Capsey holed out on the fence to spinner Abtaha Maqsood’s first ball.
Villiers and Maqsood both failed to cling on to tough caught and bowled chances offered by Smith soon afterwards, but the opener’s luck ran out when she lofted Gray into Gardner’s hands at deep mid-wicket.
Stars were however well ahead of the rate and although Scholfield failed with the bat and Franklin departed just shy of the target, Stars got home with something to spare.
Scholfield said: “The game has changed a lot this season, teams are a lot stronger, and games are going down to the wire, but we relish that as a team and back ourselves to bat and bowl deep. It was probably a bit closer than we’d hoped.”
