Weekend Review: Cheshire Women's Cricket League

Here's what happened on the final day of the Cheshire Women's League.

Division One - September 19:

Chester Boughton Hall 68 (26.2; Gemma Rose 12, Tilly Buss 12, Hope Longworth 3-12, Gaby Crabb 2-6, Emma Capper 2-12) (2pts)

Leigh 69-2 (18; Sophie Heaton 40*) (25pts)

Champions Chester fell to defeat in their final match as Leigh claimed a notable scalp, following what for them has been a difficult season. Gemma Rose took one wicket to take her to 20 for the season, but the star performers here were Leigh's Hope Longworth and Sophie Heaton - the latter very much continuing her strong end to the season. Unless a regulation change is passed to expand the first division, Leigh will unfortunately be heading back to division two next year, after they finished bottom of the table by two points. Leigh ended up in seventh place despite having two wins to Porthill's one, and also experiencing just three 'no result' matches to Porthill's four. What swung things in favour of the Potteries club was that their average bonus points from their defeats was more than six, being especially good at picking up batting points. Meanwhile, Leigh averaged just four points from their seven losses.

Division Two - September 19:

Upton 71 (18.2; Charlie Scudder 39, Luana Sims 3-2, Lauren Kenvyn 2-7) (25pts)

Porthill Park 2nd XI 52 (23.2; Sophie Morris 6-3, Hannah McGowan 2-14) (6pts)

After back-to-back defeats, Upton finished with a win in this low scoring contest, where Charlie Scudder was the only player on either side to reach double figures. Even then, she was upstaged by a superb spell from Sophie Morris, whose six very cheap victims here took her season's tally to 23 wickets. Despite it not being a vintage summer, this result meant that none of the division two matches in 2021 fell victim to the weather - the same can also be said of division four, although here clubs were able to re-arrange fixtures. However, with almost one-quarter of their fixtures ending as 'no result', the first division clubs were not so fortunate.

Nantwich v Ashton-on-Mersey – not played on original date of August 8 due to Covid self-isolation issues and never re-arranged. Teams awarded their average points from completed matches for this fixture: Nantwich 22.89, Ashton-on-Mersey 4.89