Yorkshire Women v Lancashire Thunder, Vitality Blast

Yorkshire 0 points, Lancashire 4 points

Teenaged leg-spinner Venus Weerappuli’s fabulous three for 13 set Lancashire Thunder up for a morale-boosting six-wicket Roses Vitality Blast victory over Yorkshire at York this afternoon.

Weerappuli, 16, has broken into Lancashire first team during this competition having impressed in age-group and Academy cricket. She has grown up in Yorkshire.

This excellent career best included the key wicket of opener Ami Campbell for 47 off 21 balls as winless Yorkshire slipped from 79 for one in the seventh over to 160 for seven.

Thunder openers Meg Lanning with 34 off 15 balls and Eve Jones 57 off 38 led an exhilarating but stress-free chase as Lancashire completed their second win in eight games with 17 balls remaining. Their slim quarter-final hopes are alive, but Yorkshire’s are all but over after a seventh defeat.

Lancashire opener Eve Jones said:

“The first half, they obviously got off to a flyer. I think they were 100 off 10 overs. So I thought our spinners, particularly, did really well through the middle and the back end to restrict them to 160.

“They were probably at least 20 runs under par.

“We knew the best time to bat was against the new ball. It was a bit harder later on, so we just tried to exploit that and get the team off to a really good start.

“This season, we’ve tried to play that aggressive nature from the off and try to take on the powerplay. That's been our key theme throughout the whole competition. I think the pitch allowed us to do that today.

“The competition's not gone quite the way we wanted it to, but to play like that will give us a lot of confidence going into the next few weeks. Hopefully we can string a few wins together.”