The Wellington U-21 team have produced the batting display of the tournament to date, thrashing the Otago U-21 team by eight wickets in the round two match at Lincoln today.
After Otago won the toss and decided to bat, the Wellington side had their tales up early, knocking over Polly Inglis on the first ball of the match.
Otago would recover though as Caitlin Blakely and Sarah Osborne put on 55 for the second wicket. When Osborne was dismissed it brought Captain Kylie Crowley to the wicket and she put on a master class.
Leading from the front she pounded 60 from 76 deliveries and set her team up for a big finish. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way, the middle and lower order crumbling under some tight bowling from Thamsyn Newton.
In the end Otago were all out in the 49th for 171.
Newton had a great day with the ball, collecting four for 15 from 8.1 overs. Deanna Dougherty also had figures to be proud of with two for 28 from her ten overs.
It looked to be a decent total to have to chase down, but no one could have predicted the ease in which Wellington would do so. Captain Rachel Chin and Suzie McDonald put on an unbeaten 120 run partnership to crush Otago by eight wickets.
Chin played superbly for her 70 not out, as did McDonald on her way to an unbeaten 45.
In the end it was just all too easy, Wellington taking care of the final runs to win with seven overs in hand. The only question that remains is what sort of total could Wellington have posted had they been batting first?
