Lancashire Women v Essex Women, Metro Bank One Day Cup

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Lancashire won the battle between the bottom two teams in the Women’s Metro Bank One Day Cup table comfortably defeating Essex by 153 runs at Blackpool.

The win just about keeps Lancashire in touch with the teams challenging for third place, while Essex suffered their eighth loss of the fifty-over campaign.

The visitors lost early wickets in their pursuit of 273 following excellent opening spells from Kate Cross and Tara Norris to be 26-3.

When Anneke Bosch fell for 32 to become the first of six victims for Fi Morris who returned a career-best 6-27, the Essex challenge quickly fell away from 61-3 as further wickets tumbled before they were all out for 119.   

Eve Jones made 54, becoming the first to reach 500 runs in this season’s competition, and her 67-run partnership with Emma Lamb (35) was their 13th fifty-plus opening stand in 25 innings for Lancashire.

That start was backed up by some consistent batting down the order with 32 from Tilly Kesteven and 38 by Seren Smale as the hosts finished on 272-9 from their 50 overs with Esmae MacGregor taking 3-44.  

Fi Morris, Lancashire Women said:

“I think cricket's all about momentum and sometimes you get on a bit of a roll. That's three in a row for us now.

“Confidence has such a massive part of that, so to win like we have done in the last three games as well, quite fairly comfortably, is really good for us going forward.

“We felt kind of 240 was par, so, yes, I thought we'd put a really good total on the board.

“I kind of got a little bit lucky with the last two (wickets) but I love bowling at Blackpool. It always spins a little bit, which is obviously really nice being a spinner.

“I felt like the ball was coming out really nicely today and it was backed up by my catches. But I was really thrilled with how it was coming out.”