Last Saturday - June 3rd 2017 - saw the inaugural Creditwest North Cyprus Ladies series pitch West against East in a hard fought battle. The match was held at the Pia Bella stadium’s 5-a-side football pitch and was contested by teams of 4 players; a fast and furious format based upon the indoor cricket format.

TRNC captain Gina Mapp explained, "following on from the North’s decisive wins last month against both of the South Cyprus teams, we are looking to further develop cricket in the North, especially for Ladies. The game is amazing fun and we have created our own two match competition between players based West of Kyrenia and those based to the East; TRNC's own (sort of) State of Origin matches!"

Saturday's first match in the series saw Steph Routledge and Lindsey Brown opening the batting for the West, immediately smashing the bowling for 51 runs in their 4 overs. Next Ayttis Lilianna contributed 5, but the final pairing of Rannveig Ystaas and Gina Mapp could only add 4 as the East’s Lynn Holman and Linda Hurley took a wicket apiece. Debutant Gloria Garcia kept the pressure on, conceding only 5 runs from her bowling, followed by an outstandingly tight death over of minus 3 by Val Maskell. With each wicket being scored as minus 5 runs, it kept the West’s final score in check at 55.

East’s reply got off to a promising start, but accurate bowling from Routledge and Ystaas didn’t allow Holman and Maskell to make a big enough inroad into the total within their 4 overs. Ayttis Lilianna bowling her own loopy style was also difficult to score off. The pressure of getting 34 runs for victory proved too much for the final pair of Garcia and Hurley. They attacked bravely, but Hurley was out a couple times to good balls from both Routledge and Mapp which put the score beyond them, leaving a final total of 28.

After the match, coach Nigel Holman added, “it’s great our competition has created such a high level first match in the series, with some outstanding personal performances. Our 3 strike bowlers of Brown, Maskell and Routledge were very accurate, only bowling one wide between them, together with a fine reaction catch from Mapp with the ball being deflected off the roof netting.”

Pia Bella next Saturday (10th June 2017) at 11am will see the final match in the series with the West looking for revenge. Anyone interested in playing or watching is very welcome, spectators are free of charge. For more information please call Gina on 0533 833 2069.