PUBLISHED 19 March 2022
AKS Lytham’s U13 Girls have won the Lancashire County Cricket Cup for the first time after a nail-biting final against Stonyhurst.
Having won the North West and North Finals in previous weeks the girls progressed into the Lancashire Final at Bolton Arena where they competed against the best in the County.
Led by Captain Charlotte L, the team have been training regularly, with coaching being delivered by qualified AKS cricket coaches, and being crowned champions is reward for their efforts.
In the first game against Bowland AKS scored 68 with Charlotte L & Amelia H top scorers. Having set the competitive total the bowlers then restricted Bowland to just 52 to record our first win of the tournament. The second game saw AKS up against a strong Bishop Rawstone School from Leyland . Charlotte Lwas again top scorer in our total of 71 but a good innings saw Bishops Rawstone score 79 runs to clinch the points.
The final group game against Turton High was a must win match if we were to progress to the final and all the girls raised their game to record their top score of 90 runs with Ellie S and Rosie L the top contributors. It was then down to the bowlers and tight bowling limited the scoring opportunities for Turton and at the end of the game they could only muster 68 runs and so we progressed into the County Final for the first time.
The final saw us against Stonyhurst and we took to the field first. Despite good bowling and fielding could not restrict the Stonyhurst scoring and at the end of their innings they had set us a target of scoring 97 runs to win. With our top score being 90 this was always going to be a challenge but we kept the scoreboard ticking along and with contributions from all the team we slowly moved towards our target and with Charlotte L and Hannah A top scoring we reached the total with an over to spare registering 98 runs to clinch the trophy. Charlotte L collected the County Trophy and all the team members collected their winner’s medals.
The girls will now represent Lancashire in the North of England Finals in April where a win will see them compete in the National Title at Lords Cricket ground in London.
The girls showed great resilience and character on a number of occasions during the day, with several tricky situations in the matches calling for a strong team ethos. Director of Cricket Liam Castellas said “We are extremely proud of the girls – for their cricketing performance, but also for their teamwork and leadership qualities. This is a format where it is genuinely a team sport, where you need contributions from all your players – and that’s exactly what this team produced. Faced with adversity, the girls stood tall and took responsibility, all the more remarkable considering almost the entire team are playing in only their first year of cricket”