Winning the toss for the fourth consecutive time, Captain Elwiss put the Storm into bat. Kathryn Bryce had another strong start, opening up the innings for just two runs and later claiming Mandhana as her victim. A strong start to this KSL season for the Scottish International.
Western Storm’s Freya Davies took four wickets for the side to put a halt to the Lightning’s winning momentum.
Although, as a whole the bowlers struggled to find consistency in the middle offering up too many boundary balls allowing Storm to accelerate during the powerplay. A knock of 55 from Priest and 45 from Knight was what Lightning failed to replicate with only Mignon du Preez (30) coming close to the responsibility and standards set by Storm.
Setting a total of 158 on what was thought to be a low scoring pitch proved too difficult for Lightning, however requiring a run rate of eight runs an over did make the score line far more possible than first thought. But, he loss of Matthews for 2 and Attapatu for 4 wasn’t the powerplay start Lightning envisaged. Captain Elwiss was called to action earlier than she would’ve liked in the fifth over. A mix up in the middle saw Jones depart for 22 with Elwiss caught in the deep for 12 not so long after.
At the midway point Lightning were 56-4 a score that wouldn’t threaten Storm. As du Preez partnered with Adams (17) tried to respond to the target. A promising partnership but one that fell in unison with both batters caught in the 16thover going aerially. A quick succession of wickets then fell to conclude Lightnings effort to 118 all out.
Despite Lightning ending up on the wrong side of the score line, highlights from the match include a one-handed screamer from Georgia Adams to deny Knight her 50. This is the third time this season Adams has held on to some difficult catches.
Captain Elwiss:
“Losing three early wickets in a chase never helps, although I thought we could've been in it if we batted well but we failed to make partnerships count."
Head Coach Rob Taylor commented:
" Obviously, we're really disappointed, we had a real opportunity coming here to play the team who are sat at the top of the table and we could've put on a really good show in front of the Sky cameras.
We were just flat in the field and kind of never really got into the contest as much as I would like to. Even at the half way stage they had a good score on the board, and you know, you need a couple of players to bat well to get close to that total, and I just think we weren't where we wanted to be today."