Women’s Varsity Cricket Build-Up

In 2009 Cambridge University’s women cricketers enjoyed a highly successful season. Coached by John Welch they were promoted to the BUCS Northern Premier, won the BUCS trophy and to cap it all, trounced Oxford in the Varsity one day match at Lords. The scorecard for the Varsity match read Oxford 156 all out while Cambridge reached the target of 157 without losing a wicket.

However, this season has been far trickier. Faced with the departure of a number of senior players, the restrictions of revision and top quality opposition CUWCC have struggled in their first few games and have not yet registered a win.

A turnaround is possible though. The team has some promising players and while matches have been lost they have been very close, with the difference occasionally being made by questionable umpiring decisions.

An incentive to improve is that the team will achieve full blue status if they finish 3rd. If they come fourth they will need to win the division play off in order to qualify.

Tab Sports spoke to team captain Ellie Fielding.

After a highly successful season in 2009 which ended in promotion, this year you are playing in BUCS Northern Premier. How has the team fared against tougher opposition?

We have maintained good team spirit despite losing all three games played so far. We only lost to Durham by 26 runs and Leeds and Loughborough are the top two teams in the country so it’s hardly been a disastrous start. By keeping together as a group and having a few decisions go our way we’ll hopefully be able to reverse the scores.

At the end of last year a number of senior players graduated. Has the hole left by this departure been filled by young players rising up through the ranks?

Absolutely. Everyone has improved and people are really putting their hands up for places. Louise Cadge (ARU) is an England development player and Susan Lowery, a postgrad from Oxford, has slotted in at keeper. Plus, myself and Sophia Davies have stood up to open the batting.

In the 2009 Varsity match you absolutely demolished Oxford at Lords. Given that Oxford are rumoured to have strenghtened their squad how confident are you about the team’s chances in the match?

I don’t want to count my chickens but we are feeling quietly confident. Our League fixtures are more suited to the Varsity format than Oxford’s as they only play 30 over matches while we play 50. If we keep our team spirit we should be ok.

Men’s Twenty20 matches, as the Indian Premier League vividly demonstrated, are filled with massive sixes. Can spectators expect to see a similar thing in the women’s Varsity T20?

I’d say that we are just as skilful but not as strong. While we are not going to hit out of the park or bowl at 90mph our fielding is of a similarly Jonty Rhodes-esque standard. Indeed, you probably need to be more technically proficient to compete in the women’s game.

Where can people watch you play league and T20 games?

The T20 match is on the 11th June at Fenners and the Varsity match is on the 4th July at Lords.

Cambridge University are kindly sponsored by Matrix sports, a leading manufacturer of cricket equipment.

http://www.matrixsports-global.com/

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