U19 ARCH Trophy - Day Three Round-Up

Just two games played today, but both significant in their own way.

In Group A MCC took on Devon with both having won their first games easily the day before. The winner of this game seemed almost certain to progress to the Final on Saturday.
The MCC have 13 members of the England U19 development squad and one member of the England Academy (Jess Watson) in their ranks; Devon can boast 5 England U19 players and one member of the England Academy (Amara Carr).

The MCC batted first and had made rather slow progress to 124/4 after 32 overs, but with a mixture of good batting from Cordelia Griffith (28no) and Marie Kelly (21no) and a lot of extras they added an unbeaten 72 for the last wicket in just 8 overs to finish on a respectable 196/4.

In reply Devon lost the key early wickets of Cranstone, Carr and Kelly to be 29/3. Rebecca Bertrand (17) and Claire Varcoe (9) tried to rebuild, but when Bertrand went with the score at 59, Devon collapsed to 83 all out, with Hollie Armitage taking three catches, and Issy Collis three wickets in one over to end with 4/18.

In Group B Lancashire took on Scotland. The early bowling of Lois Wilkinson (4/13) had Lancashire in trouble at 60/6 with more than half their overs gone, but Bhumika Doshi (36) and Hayley Martinus (35) produced a 7th wicket stand of 73, which allowed Lancs to post a competitive total of 151 all out. Kathryn Bryce finished with figures of 3/33.

In response Scotland made steady progress after losing two early wickets, but when Liz Priddle was out for 23 Lancashire sniffed victory with Scotland on 79/3. But Scotland were not going to roll over easily. They battled to 117/5 just by hanging around and relying on extras gifted by Lancs, but then the wheels fell off with 3 wickets going in six balls. Still they were not done, but with the last over looming Abbi Aitken was run out to leave Scotland defeated by 13 runs.

The final group games being played tomorrow are :-
Group A
MCC v Essex
Durham v Devon (D/N)
Group B
Wales v Lancs
Sussex v Scotland