The Blaze show patience and grit to earn deserved win

The Blaze (282/7) beat Warwickshire (212 all out) by 70 runs

• The Blaze set a challenging 282 thanks to half centuries by Elwiss and Prendergast

• Issy Wong (5/58) is the pick of Warwickshire’s bowlers

• George (89) and Halliday (52) combine well to give Warwickshire hope in the chase

• Crucial dismissal of Halliday in 30^th over tips the match in the Blaze’s favour

• Higham takes 4/41 to mop up the tail

This has been The Blaze’s season. Already with the Vitality Blast trophy in the cabinet, they head to Old Trafford for T20 County Cup Finals day on Saturday as hot favourites to lift that trophy. With a commanding lead at the head of the Metro Bank One Day Cup table, having won 10 of their 12 games, their team also forms the basis of the Trent Rockets team who won the Hundred this month.

The Blaze have some very good players, but also appear to be greater than the sum of their parts. A team who never panic and always find a way to win. In Kirsty Gordon, Georgia Elwiss, Tammy Beaumont and the Bryce sisters they have some of the most experienced and skilful players in county cricket, who have this uncanny knack of getting the best out of themselves and out of those around them.

Warwickshire won the toss and invited The Blaze to bat. The new ball was hooping alarmingly early on, with Wong tempting Marie Kelly to stretch for a ball that was swinging away in the first over, providing a sharp catch to Meg Austin at short third. A great start for Wong and Warwickshire, but there was no need to panic, as Tammy Beaumont and Kathryn Bryce cautiously and judiciously moved the innings forward as the shine faded from the new ball and the swing produced by Wong and Stonehouse diminished.

Ironically it required the know-how of a teenager to winkle out the set batters as 18-year-old Phoebe Brett cramped up Tammy Beaumont as she attempted to cut her in the 18^th over, the edged ball gleefully claimed by Nat Wraith and then she tempted Kathryn Bryce to hit her over mid-off, only to find the grateful hands of Em Arlott.

Georgia Elwiss and Orla Prendergast then came together to put on the most important partnership of the match. Once again, it was perfectly paced. There was no panic. They spent just over an hour knocking the ball around at about 5 runs per over, before Elwiss was dismissed as the innings entered its final 10 overs with the score approaching 200. At this point, Prendergast marshalled and organised the Blaze assault in the final phase of the game. Aided and abetted by Sarah Bryce and Emma Jones, they found the boundary with regularity, as 80 runs were scrambled from the final ten overs, leaving Warwickshire with the challenging task of chasing 283 to win.

The Bears, having lost Davina Perrin and Meg Austin early on, needed their own senior players to take control, and it was Katie George, the stand-in skipper, alongside Kiwi recruit Brooke Halliday who steadied the ship and started to give the Blaze a few worries. As the innings entered its 30^th over, both were still there, looking secure and at 148/2, Warwickshire were ahead of DLS and only 135 runs were needed from 120 balls.

Halliday was first to go, hooking a short ball from Orla Prendergast into the grateful hands of Kathryn Bryce. Bryce punched the air with joy when she caught it, knowing that a significant crack had been made in the Bears’ fortress and that one wicket would surely be followed by another.

And so it proved. Pavely, Arlott, Wraith and Wong all followed in the next few overs, so that when Katie George was the ninth batter to be dismissed, for a heroic 89, victory for the Blaze was a formality, confirmed when Phoebe Brett lifted Lucy Higham’s delivery to Orla Prendergast at long on.

Although Lucy Higham’s 4/41 rightly gets the plaudits as the key bowling performance for the Blaze, it was once again Charley Phillips who caught the eye. Her accurate, slingy pace bowling was at times unplayable and her figures of 1/17 from eight overs demonstrate the respect that the batters had to show her in order to preserve their wicket. It continues to be a very good season for her, one which ought to result in another England A call up at some point.

And so, The Blaze march on. Their unstoppable season seems destined to end in multiple trophies – who knows, maybe all of the trophies. For Warwickshire, with several players leaving including their recently dismissed captain, there is a sense that issues off the field are becoming a distraction which will result in them not making the Metro Bank semi final. For them, the end of the season and a total refresh are desperately needed.