Canterbury Tales: a women’s ODI edition of #EighteenCounties
Ending this season with a Kentish flourish
To end this season’s quota of visits to English county cricket grounds (all 18 of which we plan to visit before the end of next season), we went to the Spitfire ground in Canterbury. Here’s our stadium review and match report — followed by a little look ahead to next season.
Stadium review
We had a really good view from our seats, but the seats themselves were rather old — definitely in need of a lick of paint, or replacing. It was great to see a capacity crowd at a women’s international match — indeed, Kent had put out a few hundred folding chairs on the grass verge behind our seats, such was the demand for the final game in the ODI series between England and New Zealand. Credit to the England women’s team, the ECB, and Sky Sports for giving this series a high profile (having women’s cricket on TV during The Hundred certainly helped!).
Sitting so close to the action, it felt like an intimate ground, but big enough to create a good atmosphere. We sat opposite the famous lime tree — or rather, opposite the replacement tree, grown in place of the much grander St Lawrence Lime which had stood inside the boundary for at least 150 years. It’s a unique feature, but smaller than we’d expected!
The grass areas behind our seats were perfect for impromptu games of cricket — dozens of kids played for most of the day, keeping half an eye on the match in the middle. Aarav played his fair share too!
There was a really well-stocked shop, which even had good playing equipment for sale.
Match highlights
Match eight: Spitfire ground, Canterbury, Kent. 26th September 2021
Fixture: 5th Royal London Women’s one-day international — England v New Zealand
There’s no doubt about the highlight of this match: Tammy Beaumont’s patient, classy century. Her 102 was added to by a rapid 43 from opening partner Lauren Winfield-Hill (who was dropped several times in a sloppy fielding display from the White Ferns), and even quicker runs lower down the order by Nat Sciver and Amy Jones. England posted a mammoth 347/5, which was always going to be too much for the Kiwis.
Shrubsole began the innings by swinging the ball both ways, and wickets for Lancashire’s Sophie Ecclestone and Kate Cross made Prateek chuffed to bits. Heather Knight made up for her duck with three wickets, wrapping up a comfortable win for England.
Looking ahead to completing #EighteenCounties next season
With twelve stadiums left to visit next year, we also have some formats of the game remaining: this season we added the Women’s ODI at Kent to men’s 50 over matches at the Oval, Chelmsford and Trent Bridge, and men’s T20s at Lord’s and Edgbaston. This leaves county championship matches, women’s and men’s Hundred, and Test cricket for both men and women, to go.
This will be a challenge! We’re left with the longest trips — to Durham and Cardiff — to do. Luckily some of the remaining grounds are found in clusters in the East Midlands, South West, and North East — so we look forward to some long weekends next year! We better get onto booking tickets.
If you fancy watching a match with us, feel free to join!