Wales U19s Off To A Great Start

Wales's first game, against Scotland, was played on the nursery ground of the international cricket venue the Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Wales won the toss and elected to bat. Bethan Moorcraft and Lauren Parfitt opened the batting. Lauren Parfitt was run out for 8 taking a third run.  A partnership between Bethan Moorcroft and Gwenan Davies was cut short when Gwenan was bowled for 10.  Bethan was next to go for 30 leaving Wales 65 for 3. Ellie Hopkins arrived at the crease and started fluently with a boundary. Jeska Ward and Nicola McCabe were both removed in quick succession leaving Wales in some trouble at 88 for 6. Rebecca Struthers and Ellie then batted exceptionally well and formed a match-winning partnership of 84 runs before Ellie was run out for 41. Rebecca Struthers, 39 not out batted through the rest of the innings with some useful contributions from Kelly Rogers 10 and Isobel Day 11 not out to give Wales a competitive score of 202 for 7 in their 50 overs.

At the start of the Scotland innings, Gwenan Davies took the new ball and clean bowled the opening batter first ball of the innings, getting Wales off to a great start. Kelly Rogers opened the bowling from the stadium end and the pair of them bowled well in tandem. Gwenan removed the top three batters in quick succession leaving Scotland 14 for 3 and giving her figures of 6-1-9-3. The Wales spinners, Isobel Day (5-0-21-1), Nicole Reid (4-0-12-2) and Lauren Parfitt (5-1-8-1) did the damage in the middle order leaving Scotland with no way back in to the game. The seamers mopped up the tail with Gwenan Davies taking a spectacular diving catch off Ffion Wynne's bowling. Kelly Rogers took the final wicket to finish the game.  

Wales won by 106 runs and are off to a great start in the tournament. Wales play Sussex on Tuesday in a day night fixture and are hoping for the same match winning performance.