LANCASHIRE: Tash Farrant picked up a hat-trick but her team, Southern Vipers, still ended up on the losing side against Lancashire Thunder in the Women’s Super League 2018.
According to ICC, Thunder batted first and put up 137/6 with Evelyn Jones scoring 69 in 65 balls. Farrant was the bowling hero for Vipers with 3/24, the England international’s wickets coming in the penultimate over of the innings – Jones, Sophie Ecclestone and Emma Lamb her victims.
But Lamb then returned 4/17 and Ecclestone 3/25 – including Farrant’s wicket – as Vipers ended on 133/9 to go down by four runs, their second defeat in three games.
It was only the second hat-trick in WSL history, after Yorkshire Diamonds’ Katherine Brunt in 2016, but last season’s runners-up now have a job on their hands to resurrect their campaign, a fact not lost on Farrant.
“The hat-trick doesn’t really mean anything right now. I’d rather get the win and no wickets,” said Farrant, who has turned out for England in one one-day international and 14 Twenty20 Internationals since making her debut in July 2013.
“I didn’t realise I’d got it at the time. It was just a disappointing performance, we know we are a lot better than that. We were nowhere near our best and to only come four short makes it harder.”
Vipers started the 2018 edition with a win, but have since lost two on the bounce.
“We have to pick ourselves back up because we have three games in six days and we want to get to finals’ day,” said the 22-year-old left-arm pacer. “We need to start winning some games. We pride ourselves on being the best fielding unit in the league and we definitely weren’t that on Sunday. We probably let them get 15 too many.
“Then we were cruising with the bat [Suzie Bates (40) and Dani Wyatt (39) put up 56 for the first wicket], we needed only fives, but we threw our wickets away. Going at 10s when you are seven down is really tricky.”