Girls cricket at Cargilfield has grown massively in the past 3 years, going from a handful of girls to us now being able to field an entire 11 a side hardball side at Under 13 level. For the first time ever, we have entered both girls and boys teams into the Cricket Scotland competitions with the view that more matches and opportunities will help develop these players and give them experience that they can take with them as they move on. The only hardball competition for girls is one where teams are made up of girls from S1-S6. Our team is made up of girls from P7 and S1.

To qualify for the finals, you have to win a preliminary round and we were drawn against Fettes. Not just any Fettes team, but one which contained two of the old girls mentioned earlier. Fettes invited us to play on 'Turf', their main senior school wicket and what a lovely, mild and sunny evening it was. There was a strong support for a Tuesday evening with parents and former pupils, keen to see how our girls would fair. The format was an eight a side, ten over match with each bowler allowed to bowl two overs maximum. 

Fettes batted first and Isabella B who was captaining the side, opened the bowling losing just 5 runs from it. Isabella A bowled next and clean bowled one of their openers with her first delivery. There was great excitement and lots of muttering from the boundary from the crowd about how good our opening bowlers were. Both Isabellas were the pick of our bowlers only losing 17 runs from their 4 overs. We fielded well, particularly through Lottie and Tunrayo, but with lots of space, Fettes grew into the batting with former Cargilfield pupil, Flora, scoring an impressive 24 from 14 balls before being retired and then the other former pupil, Izzy A doing even better with 30 from 12. Given we had them at 5-1, heads were down a bit after letting them reach 95/1 after 10 overs. 

We were still in it, however, and knew that with only 8 fielders, there were going to be gaps. Isabella B and Venetia began with intent and made some quick singles before Veneita fell to the excellent spin bowling of one of their openers and their wicket taking a good catch behind. Isabella A came in and played some lovely, well-timed shots. Fettes' fielding was sharp and we lost both Isabella's to run-outs as wel looked to get the scoreboard ticking over. Esme came in and looked to play some shots but fell to a straight delivery but we showed we had depth to our batting, with Form 7s, Maddy and Scarlett playing some super shots and getting us past 50 with some boundaries.
We lost the match by 44 runs but the girls should feel very proud of how well they played against a much older and more experienced team. We gave a great account of ourselves and this experience can only help give the girls confidence as the term continues. We lasted the full 10 overs, scored 50 runs and provided an excellent spectacle. Well played, girls!