White Ferns Super League Tour #5
Sara McGlashan far left, Morna Nielsen in front of her and Suzie Bates the Great far right ... champs!
Finals day in the Women's Super League saw a healthy dose of kiwi-on-kiwi crime, which is nothing less than awesome as there were five White Ferns involved in the semi-final and then the final with Suzie Bates leading the Southern Vipers to glory.
Western Storm vs Loughborough Lightning
It started with Rachel Priest's Storm taking on Sophie Devine's Lightning and the Storm grabbed a 5-wicket win in the 20th over. The Lightning were first to bat and Devine came to crease at No.3, in the 5th over and she managed to hit 21 off 30 balls which was the second highest score for the Lightning as they reached 124/7 off their 20 overs.
Priest opened and was bowled for 4 off 6 balls, however her Storm top-order comrades managed to do the job with three of the top four each scoring over 20 to steer the Storm to victory. Devine was the last bowler used and took a wicket, finishing with 1/23 off 2.3 overs and wrapped up a fairly disappointing Super League campaign after such a promising start.
Devine hit 52 and took 2/27 in her first game and in the five games that followed, Devine then scored 40 runs and took 4 wickets. Not quite what we were hoping from with Devine as she's clearly a player with copious amounts of talent but was unable to kick on from that first game and stamp her mark on the competition.
Southern Vipers vs Western Storm
That meant that Priest went on to the final, where she faced Suzie Bates, Morna Nielsen and Sara McGlasha with the Vipers qualifying directly through to the final. Priest performed when it mattered most for the Storm, top-scoring with 57 off 55 balls before she was dismissed by Bates in the 16th over with the Storm going on to set a target of 140.
Nielsen again opened the bowling and went wicket-less for the third game in a row, while Bates gave us a taste of what to expect with 2/37 off 4 overs and a catch in dominant display for the Vipers.
Bates then went on to hit 52 off just 46 balls, putting together and opening partnership of 78 and effectively taking the game away from the Storm. Bates was dismissed in the 12th over and McGlashan also managed to chip in with 21* off 19 balls as the Vipers sealed victory in the 9th over, only 3 wickets down.
Two half-centuries in the final and the team with the most White Ferns in it winning the first ever Women's Super League? Fairly epic if you ask me and just as the White Ferns have been led so strongly by Bates, she served up the same old story for the Vipers and gave the Vipers exceptional value for money as an import.
Bates finished 2nd in both runs and wickets. She scored 232 runs at an average of 46.40 and a strike-rate of 113.17 while she also took 9 wickets at 13.77, conceding 6.09 runs an over. Interestingly, Bates finished 2nd in both runs and wickets to Stafanie Taylor with Taylor playing 7 games while Bates played 6.
Not only did Bates dominate, leading the Vipers to glory but Amy Satterthwaite, McGlashan and Priest also featured in the Super League's upper echelon in terms of runs. Satterthwaite finished in 6th with 146 runs (36.50avg/102.81sr), McGlashan finished 8th with 134 runs (44.66avg/91.10sr) and Priest finished in 9th with 133 runs (19avg/98.51sr).
That's four White Ferns among the top run-scorers of the first Super League ever folks.