The sporting comeback is rarely seen nowadays. By a comeback, I mean teams who are perennial
losers tend not to become winners. Once a team is in the ascendency, they tend to remain so and
those playing catch up tend to remain competing for the “also ran” places.
Throughout the brief and possibly soon to be forgotten history of women’s regional cricket, The Southern Vipers have been the dominant team, winning trophies at will, showing consistency and desire and professionalism,
setting standards for others to follow.
As the Vipers dominated at one end of the table, the other end of the table was dominated by
Sunrisers. In 2020, they lost all six games in the curtailed RHF competition, their best match was
when they lost by “only”47 runs to Western Storm.
In 2021 they lost all seven of their games in the RHF, including being bowled out for 53 by Northern
Diamonds and then seeing their opponents chase down the target in just under 8 overs. They also
fell agonisingly short of winning their first ever 50 over game when they came within 1 run of
chasing down 309 against the Vipers at Chelmsford. It was like losing had become engrained – a sort
of learned helplessness.
In 2022, something momentous happened. The death of Queen Elizabeth II. It caused Sunrisers’
game against Thunder to be cancelled. It meant that Sunrisers managed to get their first ever points
in the competition because all the points in that round of matches were shared. They lost all their
other games that season and came bottom of the table. Again.
Their captain at the time, Kelly Castle, spoke to us on the podcast in July 2022. “It’s been difficult
from the start and this year we’ve overcome a lot of hurdles of different players being involved and
coaches coming in and out. We were already on the back foot when the season started, but I think
as a group this is the closest we’ve ever been and the environment is good.” Head coach Trevor
Griffin had left the Sunrisers on the eve of the 2022 season, and was replaced by Laura Marsh as
interim coach for the season.
On 22nd April 2023, at the 21st attempt, Sunrisers won a 50 over game. It was the first game of the
season under new coach Andy Tennant. They thrashed the Vipers by 126 runs in Southampton. It
was a truly remarkable day. I remember being at the Sparks v Blaze game at Trent Bridge on that day
and seeing updates coming through. We had come to believe that Vipers were nearly invincible and
that Sunrisers would never win any game – and here they were humiliating the Vipers in their own
back yard.
Jodi Grewcock spoke to us on the podcast a couple of weeks later and said, “The vibe after the game
was amazing… we were relieved. Last year we were just missing that final piece… we talked about
winning the big moments and I felt we did that in the opening game.” However, the turnabout in
fortune was short-lived. They won just one of their next nine RHF games and they entered the
month of September in their customary last place in the table.
And then something remarkable changed the fortunes of Sunrisers and set them on a course which
would ultimately lead to them becoming champions. In September 2023, they changed their captain
from legendary South African Dane van Niekerk (who had replaced Kelly Castle earlier in the season)
to teenager Grace Scrivens. The result of this change? Sunrisers won their final four games of the
season under Scrivens’ leadership to rise to fourth place in the final standings. Having won two games in three years, Sunrisers managed to win four games in 11 days simply by making a 19 year
old captain.
It would be fair to say that Scrivens was not any old teenager. She had already led England under 19s
to a World Cup Final and in doing so had demonstrated leadership qualities rarely seen even in the
wiliest old pros. So how does she do it? According to her team mates at Sunrisers, all she did when
appointed captain was have a conversation with each of them about their game and gave them
absolute clarity about their role in the team. The results speak for themselves. Luke Pomfret, the
regional senior talent manager for Sunrisers spoke to us about Grace Scrivens in February 2024,
“She’s an incredibly hard worker, she leads by example. She’s got all the ingredients and the
personality to be a really good leader.”
The story of 2024: Three matches to fulfil their destiny
Match 1: 7th September 2024. The Utilita Bowl, Southampton
In 2024, Sunrisers won half their games and lost half their games in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy.
With one no-result (this time because of downpours in Radlett rather than the passing of a
monarch), it meant that Sunrisers simply needed to avoid defeat in their final game in order to
qualify for the semi-finals. However, their final game was against reigning champions Southern
Vipers in Southampton. Buoyed by their previous wins over Charlotte Edwards’ team, Sunrisers
posted an impressive 281 in their 50 overs. Cordelia Griffiths, demonstrating impressive end of
season form after being part of the victorious London Spirit side in the Hundred, top-scored with 55,
ably supported by a rapid 53 from Lissy Macleod and an equally express 41 from Florence Miller.
This performance was indicative of the Sunrisers’ DNA. They have no big star. They rely on nobody to
dig them out of trouble. The big star is the team and anyone from one to eleven can and will step up
when required.
With 282 to win, Vipers were readying themselves to bat when the heavens opened. Heavy rain
came across the Solent in mid-afternoon, seemingly scuppering any chance of a conclusion to the
game. A “no result” would mean qualification for the Sunrisers. And so all afternoon they waited for
the umpires to abandon the match. At 5pm came a knock on the dressing room door. It had stopped
raining and Vipers would bat for 10 overs, chasing 94 to win. One can only imagine the emotions in
the Sunrisers’ dressing room.
But captain Scrivens had left nothing to chance. The players had remained focussed, alert, ready to
play. After 9 overs, Vipers were 81 for 7. They needed 13 from the final over to defeat Sunrisers and
consign them to history. Up stepped Grace Scrivens. Just as she had done in the under 19 World Cup
semi-final against Australia in January 2023, when the opponents needed just 4 to win, she took
responsibility for bowling the final over. She took a wicket with her first ball and restricted the Vipers
to just three runs from the next four balls. Sunrisers had beaten the Vipers again – in fact they were
the only team ever to defeat the Vipers at Southampton in the five seasons of the RHF trophy – and
they did it twice.
Match 2: 14 th September 2024. Headingley, Leeds
In the semi-final, Sunrisers had to play away against the strongest team in the competition: Northern
Diamonds. However, Diamonds had the disadvantage of losing two of their players to England duty.
Bess Heath, their young wicket-keeper batter and, most significantly, Hollie Armitage, their captain
and leading all-rounder. Scrivens lost the toss and stand-in captain Lauren Winfield-Hill elected to bat.
Sunrisers’ bowlers did well to restrict Northern Diamonds. Kate Coppack (1 for 29) and Jodi
Grewcock (1 for 26) did a particularly good job in keeping the Diamonds to what looked like it would
be a low and very chaseable total. However, some late lower-order hitting by Phoebe Turner
enabled Diamonds to add over 80 runs from the last ten overs, setting 233 for Sunrisers to win.
In reply, Scrivens and Gardner made a solid start, adding 70 runs in the first 14 overs before Gardner
was dismissed by Beth Langston. When, four overs later, Scrivens was dismissed by Katie Levick for
56, the game hung in the balance, with two fairly new batters at the crease and 143 still required. It
was Cordelia Griffith, still in that rich vein of form, who was joined by Jodi Grewcock, who had
performed so well with the ball earlier in the day. Could these two put a partnership together to
take Sunrisers to the final?
Over the next 25 overs, these two had an answer to everything that was launched against them by the Diamonds. Griffith, who batted more cautiously, and the more aggressive and fast-scoring Grewcock added 134 runs before Levick removed Griffith for 68. Lissy Macleod came in to hammer two boundaries to win it for the Sunrisers. The barely believable was becoming reality. The team who could not win were into the final. The last ever game of women’s regional cricket – the final of the 2024 Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy, was to be played between South East Stars and Sunrisers.
Match 3: 21st September 2024. Uptonsteel County Ground, Leicester
South East Stars were the form team coming into the final. In their semi-final they had been missing
five players to England duty, but still overcame the Vipers (to be fair, the Vipers were missing seven
players). They also had the form player of the tournament in their team, Alice Davidson-Richards.
She had almost single-handedly got them past the Vipers with an outstanding 90 not out, having got
match-winning scores of 70 or more in the previous two games. They also had an array of England
stars to call upon: Bryony Smith, Paige Scholfield and Ryana McDonald-Gay were brimming with
confidence after a successful tour of Ireland with the England side and were returning to the team
hungry for success having missed the semi-final.
Ironically, it was Sunrisers who were missing a player because of international call-ups. Abtaha
Maqsood was in the UAE with Scotland preparing for the ICC T20 World Cup. Sunrisers won the toss
and invited the Stars to bat. It was clear that the toss would be crucial and that whoever won it
would field first for two reasons. First of all, it is late September at 10.30am, and the ball is likely to
nip around considerably in the first dozen overs because of the extra moisture in the air and in the
pitch. Secondly, the weather forecast indicated heavy rain would be arriving in mid-afternoon. The
side batting second just needed to stay ahead of the DLS par score and the game would almost
certainly be theirs.
After 12 overs, Stars were 52 for 4 and in trouble. Kate Coppack was causing considerable worry to
the Stars top order and had removed three of them very cheaply. On the bright side, Alice Davidson-
Richards was at the crease and looking untroubled, all she needed was some other batters to stick
around. Aylish Cranstone and Phoebe Franklin provided some support for about 12 overs each. Kalea
Moore, who had batted so well with ADR in the semi-final, scoring a half century, was inexplicably
demoted to number 9 in the batting. When she was dismissed for 5 in the 44 th over, Davidson-
Richards knew it was time to hit out before she ran out of partners. Villiers trapped her lbw for 93 in
the following over and very soon afterwards, Stars were all out for 212, failing to use the final 22
balls of their allotted 50 overs.
All Sunrisers needed to do was not lose their heads, bat calmly and sensibly and wait for the rain to
come. Grace Scrivens and Jo Gardner opened the batting, but Gardner was out to her first ball. Could
the Stars cause panic? Would the Sunrisers, over-excited at the prospect of lifting a trophy, now
collapse in a giddy heap just when they looked like favourites? With Grace Scrivens at the crease,
this was never likely to happen. If any current cricketer represents level-headed, sensible
professionalism with a clinical edge, it’s her. Batting alongside Cordelia Griffith, these two added 79
runs in the next 15 overs – steady enough to be low risk, but rapid enough to surpass the DLS score
easily. When the downpour arrived just before 4pm, Sunrisers were 121 for 3 after 25 overs. At just
after 5pm, the umpires knocked on the Sunrisers’ dressing room door. The weather had ended the
game. Sunrisers were declared the winners!
The greatest comeback was complete. The team who could not win for three years, whose only points came from the death of the Queen, who could never get over the line in tight games, the Sunrisers were the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy Champions of 2024.
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