Sport

Ireland secure first win against England in 20-over women’s cricket at Clontarf

Orla Prendergast had hit career-best 80 from 51 balls but was bowled by Kate Cross off the last ball of 19th over, leaving Ireland needing seven runs from final six balls

Ireland's Christina Coulter Reilly and Leah Paul celebrate victory against England in their T20 match at Clontarf Cricket Club, Dublin. Photograph: Damien Eagers/PA Wire
Ireland's Christina Coulter Reilly and Leah Paul celebrate victory against England in their T20 match at Clontarf Cricket Club, Dublin. Photograph: Damien Eagers/PA Wire
Raf Nicholson
Sun Sept 15 2024 - 20:08

Ireland secured their first win against England in 20-over cricket at Clontarf Cricket Club on Sunday, completing a record run chase off the penultimate ball after England’s Mady Villiers attempted to force a run-out, missed the stumps and allowed the two Ireland batters to run an overthrow.

Orla Prendergast had struck a career-best 80 from 51 balls, but was bowled by Kate Cross off the last ball of the 19th over, leaving Ireland needing seven runs from the final six balls.

Sarah Forbes struck the first ball for a boundary, just clearing the head of Hollie Armitage at extra cover, but Villiers then bowled Forbes and Ava Canning with successive deliveries, before the misfield took Ireland over the line by five wickets with one ball to spare.

Earlier Tammy Beaumont had struck 40 from 34 balls – her highest score in the format since September 2021 – as England reached what looked like it would be an unassailable 169 for eight in their 20 overs. It was just seven runs less than they had scored in the opening game on Saturday, which they won by 67 runs.

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In reply Ireland’s captain Gaby Lewis staged a 79-partnership with Prendergast for the second wicket, putting England’s bowlers and Kate Cross’s captaincy under real pressure as they bested England’s own power play by two runs.

Ryana MacDonald-Gay, making her T20 debut eight days after she received her ODI cap, had been smacked for 11 in her opening over but began her second with a wobble-seam delivery which took out Lewis’s middle stump.

Prendergast, though, progressed to a 39-ball half-century, sharing a second 50-run partnership with Leah Paul. Ireland were still left needing 42 runs from the last four overs, which looked a big ask, until Prendergast hit Charis Pavely and Georgia Adams for four successive boundaries down the ground.

England then fluffed two chances to see off Paul in the 18th over – Georgia Adams putting down a tough rebound catch off her own bowling, before Seren Smale fumbled a stumping opportunity – while Prendergast was also put down by Cross, before bowling her off the very next ball.

Ireland had again sent England out first after winning the toss, but the openers Beaumont and Bryony Smith resumed at a more sedate pace than Saturday – a 44-run power play, as compared to a 65-run one.

Fresh from Saturday’s half-century, Smith once again showcased her sumptuous lofted drive down the ground, as well as slamming some more pulls through midwicket, but holed out to Lewis at extra cover on 28.

But England’s innings gathered pace through the middle overs as Beaumont found her stride in a 50 partnership from just 27 balls for the third wicket with Paige Scholfield. After falling for a duck on debut on Saturday, Scholfield seized her chance here to display her muscle, sending Freya Sargent’s off-spin sailing back over her head for the only six of the innings.

The pair fell in successive overs at the death – both caught trying for further big shots down the ground – while Ireland tightened up their fielding to ensure Pavely and Issy Wong were both run out in the final over, with England finishing eight wickets down.

Prendergast’s badly-grazed hand, an injury sustained while in England for a three-match stint with The Blaze in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, has plagued her throughout this series. It was no different on Sunday: play had to be paused for five minutes while the wound was cleaned and dressed.

But it was worth the wait for Ireland: the seamer bowled Armitage for a duck, before sending Adams’s off-stump cartwheeling out of the ground in the 19th.

England finish the tour with three wins from five games and having presented a total of six ODI and five T20 caps. But with Ireland having pulled off two wins against England in the space of five days, the overriding conclusion must surely be that it should not be another two decades before England visit Irish shores again. – Guardian