Meir Heath Ladies CC have their day at Lords after progressing to the National Indoor final

Meir Heath Ladies Cricket Club has progressed to the final of the Indoor National Knockout Cup at Lords after beating Burton Latimer CC.

The girls travelled down to Milton Keynes for the semi final stage of the competition, where they finished second in the round robin part of the tournament, losing only to Burton Latimer. When the two sides met again in the tournament final, it was Meir Heath who came out the victors, winning by 35 runs, to ensure their place in the competition final at Lord’s in April.

Captain Elsa Evans was unable to play in the semi final due to a broken finger but went with the side to offer her advice and support. The 21 year old is sure the squad will be full of self-belief when they have their day at Lords.

She said: “There’s certainly a confident vibe around the side, but this time we need to hit the ground running and not to expect it to be easy.

“We know the standard is going to be a lot higher and we just need to go into the first game with the correct mindset.

“We’ll definitely be going down to Lords hoping to win, we can’t just go and expect to win.”

Evans is referring to the semi final when the side started the competition slowly losing the first game by 35 runs, putting themselves under pressure to qualify resulting in them having to win all of their remaining games; which they managed to do comprehensively.

Evans continued: “The opening game came as a bit of a shock to the system and we knew we had our work cut out.

“After the first game I told the girls to keep their heads up and I changed the tactics. Through watching the other games I realised that pace was the better option, so I said that Franki (James) and Amy (Carnwell) should bowl their allotted overs as they were the two quickest. We also changed the batting and looked to score off every ball not just picking up the boundaries and it seemed to work.”

Evans says she will be absolutely gutted if she misses the final, but she wouldn’t jeopardise the tournament by playing not fully fit.

She explained: “It’s not every day you get to play at Lords so I’m hoping to be fit, but I’m not going to play if I feel if I’m going to be a hindrance to the girls in anyway.”

The girls travel down to Lords on the 15^th April to take part in the final.