MATCH REPORT: Lancashire Women secure place in the final of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup

Lancashire Women maintained their hold over The Blaze in this season’s Metro Bank One-Day Cup to book a place in the final despite Kathryn Bryce’s magnificent 124 in a tense semi-final at Trent Bridge.

Ellie Threlkeld’s side await the winners of Wednesday’s second semi-final between Hampshire and Surrey at the Utilita Bowl in Southampton. The final is on the same ground on Sunday.

Lancashire Women beat The Blaze home and away in the league phase and pulled off a five-run victory in this match despite being without the competition’s top runscorer, Emma Lamb, who is with England ahead of the Women’s World Cup, and another of their key batters in Eve Jones, who is injured.

With the bat they recovered from 52 for four to post 241 for six after Scotland international Ailsa Lister hit a career-best 96 from 91 balls and captain Ellie Threlkeld a season’s best 92 from 128.

Seamers Grace Potts, who limped through most of her spell after suffering an injury in her first over, took three for 32 and Kate Cross (three  for 47) then led an excellent bowling display, restricting the home side to 236 for nine.

Bryce and Georgia Elwiss (55) combined to add 150 for the fourth wicket in The Blaze's reply but a superbly disciplined Lancashire attack ensured that The Blaze were never on top of the required scoring rate and that pressure paid off for them as the home side, 179 for three with 10 overs remaining, ultimately fell short.

Lister and Threlkeld shared a 166-run partnership for the fifth Lancashire wicket, 21-year-old Lister underlining her potential by hitting 11 boundaries before she was stumped in search of the one more needed for a maiden hundred, the home side rueing a dropped catch when she was on 66.

Seamers Cassidy McCarthy (two for 27) and Orla Prendergast, who conceded only 26 runs in 10 overs, impressed among The Blaze bowlers.

Asked to bat first on the pitch that would have been used for England’s washed-out T20 international against South Africa last Sunday, Lancashire Women found themselves in trouble at 33 for three after 10 overs.

McCarthy uprooted Gaby Lewis’s middle stump and had Seren Smale caught at short backward square, the left-armer Grace Ballinger finding the edge to have Fi Morris 

Alice Clarke - tasked with filling the shoes of Lamb at the top of the order - fell to a good catch on the legside boundary as she pulled Prendergast and with their opponents 52 for four in the 18th, The Blaze were well on top.

But Threlkeld brought her experience to bear in guiding her younger partner through a testing period before the pair kicked on from the  35-over mark, upping the scoring rate to seven per over for the next 12 before Lister, spared by the normally safe hands of Kathryn Bryce at deep midwicket on 66, went down the pitch to Kirstie Gordon’s left-arm spin and paid the price.

Threlkeld departed in the next over, run out going for a second by McCarthy’s arrow throw from the point boundary.

The Blaze, missing their three England players but accustomed to managing without them, would have seen chasing 242 as well within their compass, although less so after matching their opponents in losing three wickets in their opening powerplay.

Mahika Gaur bowled Sarah Bryce with a full delivery before Kate Cross removed Georgie Boyce, caught and bowled off a leading edge, and Prendergast, who stepped across to be leg before for a second-ball duck, leaving The Blaze in peril at 37 for three.

But just as Threlkeld and Lister rescued Lancashire, Elwiss joined Kathryn Bryce to turn their side’s innings around. Yet though Bryce passed fifty for the seventh time this season from 64 balls, none of Threlkeld’s six bowlers conceded runs easily. 

Bryce brought up her hundred, the fifth of her career in List A cricket and a first in Blaze colours, from 121 balls as the partnership ticked over to 150, but the big breakthrough for Lancashire came shortly afterwards as Elwiss, who had clocked up her fifth half-century of the season, was caught at backward point on the reverse sweep off Fi Morris, with 55 still needed off 52 balls.

The wicket opened up one end for the visitors and after Marie Kelly, Michaela Kirk and and Lucy Higham all went cheaply, The Blaze needed 33 from 18 balls, which came down to nine off the last over, but when Bryce holed out to mid-off to give Potts her third wicket, their chance had gone.