Western Suburbs First Grade Women’s team are the 2024/25 Premier One Day Champions!
The Westies after Christmas have taken a few cricket miracles, mixed in some timely player availability and sprinkled the lot with a little fairy dust to deliver a barnstorming, end of season surge to the ultimate triumph.
On this the biggest of days, destiny stayed and danced with the classy Doggies in an emphatic Grand Final victory over minor premiers Sandgate-Redcliffe to deliver our clubs first Katherine Raymont One Day Shield win in 7 years.
Sandgate-Redcliffe were buoyed by the fortuitous return from the WPL of Australian Cricket’s newest star Georgia Voll for a grand final match that had been rescheduled due to Cyclone Albert. Voll’s return meant this truely was a highly anticipated contest.
The Gators won the toss and elected to give Voll first opportunity at the Wests bowlers on a dry and amazingly well presented Trevor Hohns Field.
If one could capture a “day at the cricket” moment and keep forever then it was delivered just 72 seconds into the match. The eeriness created by a brief moment of stunned silence was broken by the deafening cacophony of exhilaration when Lily Bassingthwaite enticed a 2nd ball of the match edge from the leather marked blade of the champion Voll’s bat into the grateful gloves of Wests’s skipper Georgia Redmayne.
Unforgettable. Unbelievable. One of those moments.
Former Westie Megan Dixon (44 off 81) showed characteristic tenacity after arriving at the crease with the Gators reeling at just 2/6. She watched on as the innings slipped from bad to a crouching 5/39. Young spinner whizz Ayaka Stafford took two wickets in successive balls and Ruby Strange chimed in for another and effectively removed the entire Sandgate top order.
Whether Wests’s lost their way a little or Charlotte Lutz (40) found some form at the right time is now meaningless conjecture. Sandgate were to inch their way from 6/83 after 20 overs to a 50 over score of 9/169. Not enough runs for the Gators to be comfortable, but certainly enough leverage and perhaps conjure-up an anxiety driven victory commonly enough associated with small score grand final run chases.
Wests batting order had suffered the odd 2nd innings choke at times throughout the season-a fact not lost on the far more experienced Gator crew.
Lilli Hamilton and Ayaka Stafford were the pick of the bowlers with 2 wickets each at well under 3 per over.
Whilst Wests were arguably not at full strength for this match, it was nonetheless the longest batting order they had presented all season so victory was always going to be a challenge for the Gators and an early breakthrough therefore essential.
A solid 54 run (14 over) opening partnership between Redmayne and Courtney Sippel ensured the Westies were ahead of the required run rate when the first wicket fell and any anxiety within the batting line-up had now settled.
With Sippel’s departure for 10(39) and with Redmayne flying, Ruby Strange’s approach was initially cautious. Inevitably the two times Kath Smith medalist ceased the opportunity and launched Sandgate-Redcliffe finger spinner Darcy Johnson onto the long-on hill, scattering spectators and igniting a blistering batting offensive.
Strange (62* off 66) and Redmayne (86* off 95) simply destroyed Sandgate’s bowling and with it the Gator’s grand final aspirations. Their 119-run partnership came in just 19 overs. On the biggest cricket stage that club cricket has to offer, the pair were faultless, clinical and aggressive with neither outshining the other.
For Strange this was a timely way to once again demonstrate her unorthodox but undeniable talent and power. Such a faultless display, after an injury interrupted season, in such a big match. Strange did that!
The announcement that Georgia Redmayne was the recipient of the Julia Price Player of the Match once again reinforced that she remains not only the most underrated and determined batter in Australian Women’s cricket but a brilliant keeper and lead from the front captain.
In 2024/25, 27 players took the field for Wests in our 1st grade side. Collectively, these players navigated a remarkable season punctuated by significant key player injuries, the loss of player availability due to higher honour selection obligations topped off with historic weather events. Let the record show, all 27 players couldn’t take the field in the GF but each one has been critical in delivering this stunning Katherine Raymont Premiership to our club.
Author: Darren Sonter
