MATCH REPORT: Excellent all-round Emma Lamb display gives Lancs victory over Blaze
Lancashire 235/2 beat The Blaze 234 by 8 wickets with 30 balls to spare.
England all-rounder Emma Lamb delivered a match-winning performance as Lancashire opened the new era of women’s county cricket with an emphatic eight-wicket win over The Blaze in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup at Trent Bridge.
Watched by the national team’s newly-appointed head coach, Charlotte Edwards, opening batter Lamb took three for 42 with her off-breaks as The Blaze were restricted to 234 from 50 overs after opting to bat first, before making an unbeaten 130 with the bat as Lancashire chased down their target with five overs to spare.
Scotland captain Kathryn Bryce almost inevitably top-scored with 70 for the home side, Georgia Elwiss making 49 on debut. Left-arm spinner Hannah Jones also took three wickets, with England seamer Mahika Gaur picking up two.
All out to the last ball of their allocated 50 overs, The Blaze total always looked under par even on a used pitch, with too many batters out to self-inflicted errors. With the ball, they could not muster the same discipline as their opponents and critically dropped centurion Lamb three times, the opener going on to hit 15 boundaries.
England duo Tammy Beaumont and Amy Jones - another Blaze debutant - who opened the innings, were both out to loose shots, Jones when looking well set on 30. The same malaise afflicted their middle order while even Bryce, well though she played, might consider her dismissal was avoidable.
On the other hand, Lancashire’s bowlers deserved credit for creating pressure through the middle of the innings. England seamer Kate Cross sent down 39 dot balls and was unlucky to finish wicketless, two catches going down off her bowling.
Beaumont - captaining in place of the injured Kirstie Gordon - was the first casualty, caught at short third chasing a wide delivery from Gaur. Bryce and Jones built nicely, but after the second-wicket pair had added 47 the England wicketkeeper perished tamely, hitting Sophie Morris’s left-arm spin straight to long-off.
There seemed to be no shifting the irrepressible Bryce, who was beginning her domestic season only five days after concluding Scotland’s ICC World Cup qualifying tournament in Lahore with an unbeaten 131 in the thriller against Ireland. The all-rounder, whose half-century here came in 53 balls, has amassed a remarkable 1,786 runs in all formats since the start of 2024.
With Elwiss - the former Loughborough Lightning skipper who is back in the East Midlands after a highly successful stint with Southern Vipers - she put on 82 for the third wicket before Elwiss, who had looked impressive, was bowled by a clever delivery from Jones.
Nonetheless, The Blaze looked to have a platform for a big score at 146 for three from 32 overs but probably wasted the opportunity. Bryce, already with a boundary in the over, was caught at mid-off, Prendergast at extra cover, Claridge at deep mid-wicket and Boyce at mid-wicket, the last three seeing 191 for four become 197 for seven in the space of 11 balls.
Josie Groves plundered 21 after being dropped on one, but 234 looked a tricky total to defend.
Needing to build pressure on their opponents from the start, The Blaze did not help themselves, with new ball bowlers Grace Ballinger and new signing Charley Phillips, formerly with Sunrisers, each conceding wides and boundaries in their opening spells.
Bryce the bowler made a breakthrough with her first delivery, inducing a return catch via a leading edge to remove ex-Central Sparks skipper Eve Jones on her Lancashire debut, but Lamb and overseas signing Katie Mack took charge, Lamb making The Blaze pay as Elwiss dropped her on 17 at mid-wicket and Groves on 26 at backward point - Ballinger the unlucky bowler on both occasions - by completing a 65-ball half-century with her ninth four.
It took until the 31st over for the second-wicket pair to be separated, England leg-spinner bowling Australia’s Mack middle stump for 44 to end a stand worth 114.
Lamb had another escape on 92, albeit to a tough caught-and-bowled chance spilled by Glenn, but kept her nerve and completed her fifth List A hundred from 114 balls, having hit 12 boundaries, then seeing her side over the line in an unbroken 86-run partnership with Seren Smale (38 not out).