Villiers keeps calm to give Durham their second victory in the glorious North East sunshine

Durham (244/7) beat Warwickshire (243/9) by 3 wickets with 21 balls remaining

Photo Credit: Durham Cricket

I cannot tell you how it was,

But this I know: it came to pass

Upon a bright and sunny day

When May was young; ah, pleasant May! (Christina Rossetti)

This was the day we have spent the dark Winter months dreaming of. It is May. High Summer is not yet here with its stifling heat or disappointing greyness or torrential downpours. We are in the glorious month of May. The early season cobwebs have been blown away. The season ahead is full of promise and stretches out before us like an enormous canvas ready to be filled by a great artist. The pleasant warmth of the sun and the gentle breezes provide the ideal backdrop for our most wonderful game. The Metrobank One Day Cup was made for days like today.

This has been the season of the chase. Far more teams have won when batting second than when batting first. So, it was a little bit of a surprise when Warwickshire won the toss and decided to bat. Warwickshire are an unusual team when it comes to batting. They only have two “specialist batters” and yet the whole team make contributions with the bat. Even the captain, Georgia Davis, batting at number 10, scored a 50 in their last game. With confidence, therefore, Davis herself made the choice to bat first. Things did not go well. 

Grace Thompson, the 17-year-old local prodigy and Sophia Turner, the 22-year-old Lancastrian were getting the ball to swing and move, causing the batters all sorts of problems. Thompson struck twice in the powerplay – Freeborn and Kallis out in identical fashion, flashing outside off-stump and edging the ball to a gleeful Bess Heath. Perrin came in and looked her imperious best, punching the ball for boundaries and pushing for singles. She simply did not look like she would ever get out… until she got out, a daisy cutter of a straight drive was magnificently caught and bowled by Villiers. 

Before we knew it, Warwickshire were 96/5 in the 22nd over, Em Arlott was once again having to enter the fray indecently early for a number seven batter. And yet Warwickshire always seem to find a way. All of their players (with the exception of Hannah Baker) can bat well and all of them have already made significant contributions this season. Today it was Katie George chipping in with 42, Charis Pavely with 57, Em Arlott with 29 and Issy Wong with 32. Suddenly Warwickshire started building a defendable total and what at one point looked like 170 all out became a final total of 243/9. Even Hannah Baker, the team’s only true old-fashioned tailender cover herself in glory by coming in to face the final ball and hitting it for six, much to her own surprise.

The Durham reply was confident and assertive. Having lost Emma Marlow early on, the formidable combination of Suzie Bates and Hollie Armitage piled on a century partnership, sending the ball to the boundary 16 times between them, they put Durham into a strong winning position. Armitage on 46 sent the ball powerfully towards the cover point boundary, expecting to reach her half century, only for the ball to be caught by Davina Perrin. Bates, troubled by a back injury, came down the track to Pavely, who fired the ball wide down the leg side. Bates spun round and dived face down in the dirt, but her bails had already been removed – she was gone for an excellent 72. Bates had done her job – Durham just needed 96 from 24 overs with seven wickets left, it was surely too little too late for Warwickshire.

Except… wickets kept falling regularly. Rogers and Heath were caught out form the bowling of Baker and Davis respectively. Turner tried to hit a straight one from Arlott to deep square leg and lost her off stump as the ball kept low. Katherine Fraser was run out by a direct hit going for a run that was never there. From the 30th to the 40th over, Durham only scored 28 runs and lost 3 wickets.

Fortunately for Durham, Maddie Villiers remained, reaching her 50 in the 42nd over and increasingly finding the boundary. Joined by Grace Thompson, she found a fearless and confident collaborator who stuck around and struck at a run a ball. By the end of the 45th over, only 10 more runs were needed. It was left to 17-year-old Thompson to hit the winning runs in the 47th over.

And so ended a memorable game on a glorious May day. Durham worked hard to get themselves in a winning position, then almost threw it all away, but thanks to the calm head of Maddy Villiers, with the support of the talented Grace Thompson, Durham gained their second win of the season.