Kate Cross On Her South African Cricket Odyssey

May 292012

Kate Cross is one of the most successful young players to have come through the ranks at Heywood CC.

In early April, she was selected in the England Academy squad to travel to Potchefstroom in South Africa to play against the South African ladies.

Now the coach of the club’s under-9s, Kate is putting in the effort for Heywood CC. Here she gives her views on the tour.

It was such a good two and a half weeks over there, the experience of playing against an international side in two series was something that most of us won’t get again for a long time.

Unfortunately we didn’t quite perform as a team, especially in the bowling department and we were outplayed on a few occasions.

However, when we did turn up, we beat them quite convincingly which was really good to be involved in.

Their two opening batters were out main threat and they went really hard at the opening bowlers, but having said that, the middle overs were always a good period for us and we always managed to pull back well and get ourselves back into the game.

Personally, it was quite a tough tour for myself.

I started well in the warm up match with two wickets and opened the bowling in the first game and couldn’t find any rhythm and I think my figures showed that. I came back in the second game and bowled a lot better but then was dropped for the third game and naturally my confidence dropped as I thought I had only had two bad overs.

I played all the t20 games and I thought I bowled tight and to the plans and was pleased with my three performances.

Having said that I was slightly disappointed that I wasn’t then really given the chance to show what I could do again.

Overall though, I’d say it was the most enjoyable tour I have been on and everybody had such a good time over there.

We were really looked after and it was good to actually get some cricket in the sunshine under our belts.

Click here for details of the T20 series

Click here for details of OD series