On Monday the 25th of May Castle Douglas High School girls’ cricket team along with some ladies from Galloway Cricket Club went to watch a game of cricket where the Wildcats (Scotland Ladies) played Durham County at Durham City Cricket Club.
It was an early start but we were excited to go and watch some of Scotland’s best female cricketers! We arrived just after the game had started but it was fine because they were just warming up into the game. The ground was very picturesque and the club house was very nice compared to ours at Gatehouse which really needs to be replaced. We found a nice spot on the hill to watch the game and dug in to our picnic as it had been a long journey. It was so exciting as the Wildcats took an early wicket just as we sat down!
Abbi Aitken, the captain played extremely well as her bowling was outstanding and saw her take at least one wicket! We were also very lucky to meet Lea Tsui from Cricket Scotland who had invited us to the game. She gave us lots of information about cricket and the correct etiquette. Also she told us the players’ names so that we could encourage the team. We found lots of things our team could improve on and we are going to work on them in our regular training sessions.
We have also learnt many fielding positions which we didn’t know before this trip – we are hoping this will impress our coach when we are at training! After the first innings we got to meet some of the players and Kari Carswell, their coach, also got us a ball so that we could practice bowling. We didn’t get to watch the whole of the second innings because we were keen to get back in time for cricket training at Galloway Cricket Club that evening!
Overall we had a very enjoyable day and we learnt lots by watching experienced teams play. We are also very thankful to Natalie for organising the trip and to Dawn, Kathleen and Natalie who drove us to Durham and back.
Laura Scobie, Alex Livingstone and Jessica McCulloch, CDHS
