News

Ireland Women are ECB T20 Division Two Champions following who impressive wins over Staffordshire and Somerset today. Ireland have now gained promotion to the top tier in the T20 competition in 2015.
Ireland v Staffordshire Scorecard

In game one Isolbel Joyce marked her return to Ireland duty with an unbeaten 51 from 46 balls as Ireland chased down Staffordshire’s 112, with Clare Shillington also in the runs with 33.

Earlier, the Staffordshire opening pair of Lally (28) and James (44) got the home side off to a solid start, putting on 68 for the first wicket, before Lucy O’Reilly (3-14) and Elena Tice (2-13) combined to turn the fortunes for Ireland stemming the flow of runs and picking up vital wickets as only one of the other Staffordshire batters reached double figures.

In the second game of the day, a winner takes all encounter with a strong Somerset outfit who had just beaten Staffordshire, Ireland blew away the opposition recording an impressive 75 run win.

Batting first, Isobel Joyce continued her fine form from the first match scoring 40 at the top of the order, while number three Clare Shillington scored 23.

Once Shillington and Tice departed, Kim Garth (24*) and Laura Delany (31) combined to push Ireland onto a competitive total of 134.

A brilliant effort with the ball and in the field by Ireland got their defence of to a fantastic start and after 4 overs Somerset were in all sorts of trouble at 14-3 – Louise McCarthy picking up all three wickets.

14-3 soon became 59 all out, as Isobel Joyce capped a fine personal day with 3 wickets for just 6 runs, while O’Reilly picked up another two wickets for just 5 runs and Laura Delany and Gaby Lewis both took 1-6.

Ireland lifted the ECB Division Two T20 Championship Trophy – the perfect warm up for the European T20 Championships which pits Ireland against Scotland and the Netherlands from August 12-17 at Rugby School.