Caterham Cricket Club hosted its’ inaugural Girls Cricket Festival at Old Caterhamians Playing Fields on Sunday 17^th May. The day featured four sides with players ranging in age from 8 to 13 drawn from the following clubs - Caterham, Newdigate, Lingfield and Edenbridge.

The four teams played a round robin tournament of pairs incrediball cricket ensuring that all girls batted and bowled in each match. The opening round of matches saw Newdigate Tigers defeat Newdigate Panthers, and Caterham defeated the Lingfield & Edenbridge side. When the second round was completed both Newdigate Tigers and Caterham had won both of their matches so their meeting in the final round of matches would decide the winners of the tournament. Newdigate Panthers defeated Lingfield & Edenbridge in a close fought battle to secure third place whilst on the main square the showdown between the two unbeaten sides took place.

Caterham won the toss and invited the Tigers to bat first. They were restricted to 233 thanks to some tight fielding that saw 2 run outs in the innings and a wicket maiden from Evie Goodyear playing in her first tournament. In reply Caterham struggled to make much ground against some accurate bowling from the Tigers and as the last pair came in they needed 19 off the final 2 overs. Some fine strokes by Amy Johnstone took 10 from the penultimate over to leave 9 required off the last but some straight bowling in the last over from Evie K restricted Cats to just 4 runs as the Newdigate Tigers secured victory by just 4 runs to finish as tournament winners.

Caterham’s Amy Johnstone with 24 runs without being dismissed finished at the leading batsman in the tournament and her teammate Melissa Parrett produced the best bowling figures in a match narrowly missing out on a hat-trick as she took taking 2 for 1 against Newdigate Panthers.

Tournament organisers Richard Parrett and Chris Bullen reflected that in fact everyone were winners as a fabulous day of cricket had seen 32 girls, many of whom were playing in their first matches, get the opportunity to play 3 games each, with and against, like-minded girls from other clubs.

The girls cricket section at Caterham Cricket Club continues to grow following successes over the past few seasons that have seen several club members playing at county level in the U13 and U15 age groups. Any girls aged between 8 and 15 looking to join Caterham Cricket Club should email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or use the contact us through the website www.caterhamcc.com