Bears Women will be looking to bounce back from their Wednesday night defeat against Essex, with a packed weekend of fixtures against Somerset and Lancashire at Edgbaston.
Hosts Essex batted first and posted a healthy 154/4 from 14 overs following a lengthy rain delay, which was increased to 159 on the Duckworth-Lewis Stern method.
Davina Perrin got the Bears off to an ideal start, taking down the Essex openers in a reduced powerplay, but she fell before being able to make serious inroads in the tough chase.
When Laura Harris departed for a duck, it would have been easy for the Bears to lose hope, but Sterre Kalis played a sterling innings in the middle order, striking 52 from 25 balls and looked in magnificent nick.
Unfortunately, Sterre's knock wasn’t enough for the Bears, and they slipped to a 19-run defeat.
The Bears were top heading into the fixture against Essex, who have replaced them at the summit of the table, whilst the Bears slip down to third.
The beauty of the Blast is that the Bears will have the opportunity to rectify the loss quickly with two winnable games this weekend.
Head Coach Ali Maiden said, “It’s a quick turnaround, you have to start again, go through the process again and prepare well for the next game and always be looking ahead.
“We’ll do the same again, forget this game, take the learnings from it and keep the emotion out of it, then prepare for Somerset on Friday.”
Somerset are currently bottom of the Vitality Blast table, but they have shown their white-ball ability in the Metro Bank One Day Cup, where they are fourth after the first block of fixtures.
The South West side are coming in off the back of a crushing defeat to Essex in their previous game, where they were bowled out for 84.
They will also be without Heather Knight, who is out through injury. However, they will be led by Sophie Luff, who has fond memories of Edgbaston, scoring 111* in the ODC fixture there earlier this year.
Lancashire are also in the bottom half of the table but have similarly shown their quality in the ODC.
However, they too will be without star players due to England duty and injury, including Emma Lamb, who is arguably the in-form white-ball bat in the country right now.
Squad
Georgia Davis (c)Meg AustinHannah BakerBethan EllisAbbey FreebornKatie GeorgeHannah HardwickLaura HarrisSterre KalisCharis PavelyDavina PerrinMillie TaylorIssy WongNat Wraith
How to follow
Members and supporters can follow the match live in our Match Centre at edgbaston.com, which will include a free-to-watch stream and a live text commentary. You can also see a ball-by-ball feed and watch highlights of all the action. Supporters can get involved by sending their match-day comments and thoughts on X via @WarwickshireCCC and we’ll publish the best ones on our live text commentary in the Match Centre. Supporters can also watch the Live Stream and get instant push notifications of all wickets, innings and match results via the Edgbaston app, which is free to download on iOS and Android. Match updates will also be available across the Club’s social media accounts, simply search for @WarwickshireCCC.
.png?clxf=t_general_medium)
