Women Blast at Home v The Bears

The women get another chance to have an evening game in Taunton as the Men are in Kent for their Blast game.  On a truly beautiful evening one hopes they have the double thousand plus croad they had the last time this happened.  The other hope is that the confidence of their win in the game against Essex carries on and gets them into the mood to do it again tonight.

Women's Blast v "The Bears" @ Taunton Friday 11 July 2025

Are 'The Bears' just that or Warwickshire 'Bears' or Birmingham 'Bears'?  It's a veritable minefield!

Seems it's the Birmingham version (bet the rest of Warwickshire is over the moon about that!)  Captain Georgia Davis brings the team South West including overseas player Laura Harris and Sterre Kalis on a season's loan from Yorkshire.

Somerset are still without a number of their main players to injury Knight, Corney and Munday still to injury and Dean still with England.  Sophie Luff  seems to be back from a slight illness on Tuesday and she will be part of a 15 player squad in competition for the 11 places.  More info will appear at 6pm and the game will start at 6:30.

The Bears have won the toss and have elected to bat first.  

Somerset are unchanged

Odgers, Holland, Davis, Wilson, Hazell, Griffiths, Wellington, Skelton, Robbins, Barnes, Vikusic

No Luff return - but why change a wining side?  Holland will captain.

Mollie Robbins starts the game bowling to Austin and has her first ball LBW!! 0 for 1 In comes Surenkumar to join Perrin after the first ball.  The Bears do not get the chance to settle as Mollie gets SerenKumar edge into her stumps for 2 in the first over!! 4 for 1 after one and Barnes  takes the second.

Kalis and Perrin move the score on to 26 after the third

The slower bowling is a little bit of a change and the Bears bats get a bit of a reprieve and Perring takes her score to 17 from it as the visitors reach 20 from the 2.

Robbins is back with 1 over 2 for 4!! After the 4th one they are 36 for 2 and Erin Vikusic is bowling.  it might be that she has Perring dropped off her first.  It did look like she mighht have nicked that one and Hazell did not hold on to it standing up.  42 for 2 by the end of the over.

Robbins takes the 6th and Wellington takes the catch as Perring goes big but not long enough.  She goes for 20 off 12 at 42 for 3 and Mollie has 3 for 11!!

In comes George and on comes Amanda-Jade Wellington to bowl the 7th.  The Bears go past 50 in this one before Chloe Skelton is introduced for the 8th at 55 for 3.

It's 62 for 3 after Skelton's second and Somerset's 8th and Alex Griffiths takes the 9th.and it is 65 for 3 when she finishes it. Olivia Barnes takes the 10 and it is 73 for 3 at halfway.  A good front end, especially from Mollie Robbins and a score of about 150-ish is possible?

Kalis is the base of the Bears' innings at the moment on 36 fro 31 though George is looking to be good solid support in the partnership and while these two are in it looks like they willget the inings back on track.  Griffiths takes the 12th and the Bears have reached 83 for 3

Vikusic is back for the 13th as the Bears look to move beyond three figures.  Kalis takes them close finishing the Croatian's 2nd over at 95 for 3 with 7 overs left.

Wellington is back for the 14th and they move to 105 by the end of it.  Skelton has the 15th and she has Kalis stumped by one she misses just after she has gone past 50 to 51 at 105 for 4.  She made 50 from 38 but has gone. After Skelton's success Mollie Robbins  returns and has George first ball off a top edge caught by Bex Odgers for 38 at 115 and Robbins has 4 for 20!  She bowls out at 4 for 29 - an excellent spell!!

Harris is not messing around as she takes 14 from her first 5 balls while Wraith, her partner has only 4 when Wellington tempts her to hit into the outfield and Fran Wilson takes a good diving catch to make the score 124 for 6.  In comes Taylor and by the 18th they have moved the score to 135 for 6.

Skelton takes the 18th and Harris takes her first ball to the boundary without bouncing.  However, when she tries it again with the second she is caught in the deep by Holland and it is 141 for 7 as the Aussie goes for a quickfire 29 from 12. 

At the end of the 19thit is 145 for 7 and an excellent last over from Vikusic only moves that on to 149 including Erin having Taylor caught by the skipper again with the last ball of the game giving her a hard grafted total of 1 for 21 from her 3   Somerset have worked hard for that score building on the excellent biowling of Robbins and they need 150 to win this one.

This is a good position for the Somerset women and this is definitely ON

The Reply

Odgers and Wilson stride out to face Brett.  Odgers takes 1 but Brett takes out Holland bowled with the last ball of the over 1 for 1. Out comes Davis and Serenkumar takes the second over and after 3 they have moved the score onto 14 but when Brett starts the 4th, Davis tries to reverse sweep her and only manages to hit the ball into her own wicket and she goes for 4 and in comes Fran Wilson

By the end of the 'Powerplay' with the 6th over being bowled by Davis. Odgers (16 from 21) and Wilson (15 from 7) have moved to 37 for 2.  Things go swimmingly until the end of the 7th when Odgers get hold of one and Baker takes an excellent caught and bowled when at 43 and she goes for 21 from 23.  In comes Jess Hazell.

Taylor takes the 8th over and from her 3rd ball and Jess's  2nd she calls Fran  through for a daft single and while she is trying to get back she is run our at 44.    She is very very very unimpressed as she throws her bat in the air and wanders off at 44 for 4.  This brings in Wellington.

Baker in the 9th at 49 for 4 ends the Somerset captain's sad little innings as she fools her with pace and she top edges a dolly catch and departs for 2 caught by Harris.  This brings Alex Griffiths  to the crease with quite a job to do as they move the score to 62 for 6 with Griffiths going to Taylor's last ball of the 10th over bowled for 4

Skelton Joins our Aussie and they start looking at setting up a partnership to get close to this score.  It is not going to be easy but by the 14th over they have moved the score on to 78 with Amanda-Jade on 19 from 17 and Chloe on 7 from 12.  They need 72 runs in 37 balls and this one might be beyond them from there one would think.

By the 15th the pair have moved the score into the 90s.  Wellington takes 3 fours off Baker but she has 2 for 30 and she has Wellington stumped at 97 for 7 for 33 from 24.  This brings Mollie Robbins to the crease facing Taylor taking the 17th. At 107 with 5 balls bowled Robbins is stumped (though I think tshe hit is and thought she was caught) and at 107 for 8 with a requirement of 2 runs a ball this one is all but over as Barnes walks out to bat.

We lose no more wickets but we are 23 runs short when the balls run out.  At 127 for 8 the batting was disappointing while Birmingham's bowling was very good and tight.  Though we might have had that ojne but Fran's  run out and Jess's departure destroyed the front end and the momentum of the chase.