Leading the Foxes at Lord’s: A Captain’s Reflection

We opened our T20 Blast campaign with a narrow defeat to Worcestershire at home. Our standards in the second innings of that opening game were far from what we have come to expect of ourselves from a bowling and fielding perspective. We knew we had to put some things right if we were to compete against a strong Middlesex side two days later. I guess that’s the benefit of a quick turnaround between games - it’s not too long till you get another opportunity to bounce back. 

With only two Blast matches being played at Lord’s this season, the scheduling was in our favour for our Middlesex away fixture. We headed down the day before, and as part of our preparation, we wandered around the pavilion and the ground to take in the occasion. Having Daffy (Phillip DeFreitas) on the coaching staff not only meant that we had a tour guide with some pretty cool stories and his name up on the honours board, but we also could learn from his experiences of playing at the home of cricket. 

Before warming up on the nursery ground, we had some time together to chat about how we wanted to approach the game from a mindset perspective. Kent had lost to Middlesex by over a 100 runs a couple of days before, and we were aware that we did not want to let the occasion get the better of us. We spoke about wanting to embrace the opportunity to play here, in front of what I’d imagine was the biggest crowd we’ve ever played in front of. I remember watching England win the ODI world cup at Lord’s in 2017 and saying to my mum “I wish I could play here, how awesome would that be?”.  Back then, you couldn’t have imagined that women’s domestic cricket would play there, so it had never crossed my mind that I could one day lead Leicestershire out at Lord’s. It was only 2 years ago that we were playing all of our games at club grounds and now almost all of our games are at county grounds. This is testament to the growth in women’s cricket, with the standards and visibility having risen massively. I was inspired by that day at Lord’s in 2017, and my hope is that young girls in Leicestershire think that they could one day play on the stages we now play. 

I lost the toss and Middlesex chose to bat. There was a lot of excitement amongst the group, and we were really up for it as we headed out to the pitch from the iconic Long Room. Emma and Ellie hit their areas right from the start and it felt like every bowler I turned to continued that level of control. With this, we were able to set plans which made it really difficult for them to find the boundary. We conceded only 8 boundaries across that innings, which is an unbelievable effort in T20 cricket. The pressure that was created meant that they finished 115/4 from their 20 overs. We headed out to bat feeling like the momentum was with us, needing less than a run a ball. The depth in our batting order showed and we were steered over the line by Ellen and Caitlin with overs to spare.

One of the great moments from last season was reaching finals day in the Blast campaign. However, we lost heavily to Middlesex in the semi-final and they ultimately went onto win the competition. They have been a dominant team in tier 2 since it began last year, and this was only the second game they had lost so far across both seasons. Their dominance in our league made the win that much sweeter and we can take real confidence from the way we performed. A very special day was topped off by heading over to the stands to celebrate with our friends and families who had made the trip to support us. This was perhaps the best part of it - when we could acknowledge what a great day we’d had and how proud we were to have comprehensively beaten the reigning champions at Lord’s. Before the bus home, we disturbed the whole pavilion by shouting ‘Foxes are you ready ready?’.

It was certainly a day to remember and a brilliant response to our opening defeat. We’re one win from two games and  we now look ahead to the next part of this competition. We want to build some winning momentum as we face Sussex at Hove and Northamptonshire at Uptonsteel Grace Road this weekend.