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A superb century from England’s Tammy Beaumont led The Blaze to a seven-wicket victory with 13.1 overs to spare as Hampshire’s unbeaten start to the Metro Bank One-Day Cup women’s competition ended at Trent Bridge.
Beaumont finished 112 not out after sharing an unbroken 159-run partnership with Georgia Elwiss (58 not out) to complete a third win from four matches for the East Midlands side.
Another of their England stars, leg spinner Sarah Glenn, took three for 36 as Hampshire were restricted to 189 in their 50 overs, opener Ella McCaughan top scoring with 57.
Hampshire had two wins and a tie in their opening three fixtures, setting a record for the highest successful run chase in women’s List A cricket in England when they overhauled Lancashire’s 292 for six at Southport last week.
Winning the toss and batting first here on a used pitch, they looked well placed to continue in that form at 41 for one after the opening 10-over powerplay, even though they had lost opener Maia Bouchier in the 10th over, the England batter chopping on as she reached for a wide delivery from left-arm seamer Grace Ballinger.
Yet that early momentum was lost, home skipper Beaumont’s decision to toss the ball to Glenn at that point paying off as the England leggie not only stemmed the flow of runs but took three key wickets, bowling her 10-over allocation in a single spell from the Radcliffe Road End.
Employing the old-fashioned virtue of bowling at the stumps, Glenn dismissed Charli Knott and Rhianna Southby, both bowled making room to cut, either side of Georgia Adams falling leg before, trying to work to leg. It left Hampshire with work to do at 91 for four from 25 overs.
They soon suffered another blow as McCaughan, who had completed a third consecutive half-century after her career-best unbeaten 133 against Lancashire, played loosely at a ball with which Josie Groves, The Blaze’s second leg spinner, found turn and bounce and gave a simple catch to backward point.
Charley Phillips, the 21-year-old former Sunrisers seamer, had Abi Norgrove caught at deep square leg and Nancy Harman beaten for pace to finish with two for 50, before Freya Davies (25 not out) and Poppy Tulloch (18 not out) combined in the best partnership of the innings, adding 46 in the final 10.4 overs of the Hampshire innings.
It felt like a below par total, but putting runs on the board proved equally difficult for the home side as Freya Davies and Lauren Bell restricted them to 31 for two in the powerplay, taking a wicket apiece as Amy Jones failed to clear Bell at mid-off off the former before a poor shot from Kathryn Bryce off Bell gave backward point an easy catch.
When Sarah Bryce pulled Bell to be caught behind square, The Blaze were 33 for three.
Yet Beaumont and Elwiss were able to bring their experience to bear in negotiating Hampshire’s attempts to frustrate them, coming through 10 overs of spin before upping the tempo to take the total to 106 for three from 25, Beaumont pulling Poppy Tulloch for consecutive fours to leave The Blaze needing another 84.
Beaumont’s half-century came from 73 balls with four boundaries, Elwiss reaching the milestone from 10 fewer deliveries, also with a quartet of fours, after which Beaumont began to look for a quick finish, advancing into the 90s with a towering six over long-on off Davies and a four into the same area, pulling Bell for a 10th four in the next over before a scrambled single took her to a 15th career hundred in List A cricket from 110 balls.
And it was Beaumont who finished the job with her 11th boundary to get the job done after a partnership with Elwiss that could not have been better paced.
The Blaze captain Tammy Beaumont said:
“It’s great to come back here after two wins on the road and get a win like that against a really strong Hampshire team. To keep them to under 190 was an amazing effort by our bowlers.
“On a used pitch we went away from our usual policy of rotating the seamers and getting Glenny (Sarah Glenn) on early worked really well and Josie (Groves) did a really great job supporting her at the other end. Glenny has come back from a rehab stint on her back, she’s worked really hard on her action and she is starting to see the rewards. She was outstanding today.
“Georgia and I know each other really well. She is an outstanding signing for us. I had her at the Welsh Fire and she is very much my sounding board as captain, with the ideas that she brings. She announced her intent as soon as she came out today and got us going again after losing those early wickets. We were still thinking positively and we knew that if they bowled bad balls we could score and there wasn’t too much scoreboard pressure, so it was a case of play our game, nothing excessively risky.
“We are both quite good at taking singles off the spinners and we just talked about scoring off as many balls as we could rather than looking for boundaries.”
Hampshire Women interim head coach Paul Prichard said:
“We didn't get enough runs, obviously, which was our biggest downfall. We had a couple of soft dismissals in the middle of the innings, which set us back. It was a used wicket, but it played fine and we’ve no complaints about that, we just didn’t play well enough.
“I felt The Blaze bowlers bowled very well, held their lengths. Sarah Glenn bowled very well in the middle, didn’t give us much to work with and we were short, really, in that department.
“In the previous three games we’ve been able to get good partnerships but no one did that today. We needed someone to stay with Ella McCaughan and we didn’t get that.
“Even so, getting to 190 gave us an outside chance and we got some quick wickets but once Tammy (Beaumont) and Georgia (Elwiss) came together with all their experience they played beautifully to get them over the line.”
