Lauren Winfield-Hill leads Northern Diamonds to Trophy triumph

The Diamonds opener passed 50 for the eighth time in her last 10 innings in the tournament to ensure the defending champions – defeated by Central Sparks on Saturday – responded with a comprehensive win at Chelmsford.

Seam duo Lizzie Scott and Jessica Woolston laid the foundations with two wickets apiece before leg-spinner Katie Levick’s three for 23 ensured Sunrisers were bundled out for 157, despite Jodi Grewcock’s second half-century of the tournament.

Winfield-Hill then top-scored with 51 from 43 balls and Bess Heath struck an unbeaten 32 from 25 as the visitors chased down their target with 21.3 overs to spare.

“Obviously Lauren’s always fantastic at the top, isn’t she?,” said Scott, pictured. “She sets the tone for us, having her there gives us more confidence as a batting unit.

“As a team we don’t really dwell on past things, we use them as learnings and I think we did really well to transfer that defeat (to Central Sparks on Saturday) into something a lot more positive and put our foot down.

“We need to keep that momentum going. Obviously with our amazing season last year we’re almost the team to beat.

“I feel I’m still quite new into the team so it feels really good to get figures like that – I’m delighted.

“I love bowling with Wooly (Jessica Woolston) – we work really well together as a partnership. We’ve been talking a lot about how to build bowling partnerships as well as batting ones.

“Because we’re quite similar bowlers, we manage to build a lot of pressure on the batters and, especially with the left and right-hand combination, they were struggling to get us away. The pressure was there from both ends, which led to the wickets we managed to take.”

Kate Coppack’s unbeaten 16 at least hauled Sunrisers above the 150 mark before they were bowled out with four overs unused – but the total never looked like one they could defend.

Winfield-Hill immediately set the tone for Diamonds’ response, slamming Coppack to the midwicket boundary twice inside the opening over as she and Sterre Kalis built a belligerent partnership of 53.

Coppack’s luck seemed to be out, with Kalis edging her just over the stumps for four and it was Sunrisers skipper Kelly Castle who eventually achieved the breakthrough, trapping the opener in front with a slower delivery.

With Winfield-Hill striking the ball well and Hollie Armitage in no mood for caution as she cracked Abtaha Maqsood to the rope three times in her first over, Diamonds appeared to be coasting to victory.

They were held up by Villiers, whose wily off-breaks brought her figures of 3-42 – the trio of victims including Winfield-Hill and Armitage. However, Heath clubbed Villiers over long-on for the first six of the match – and then flayed the second off Eva Gray to seal Diamonds’ victory in style.