Durham Women finished bottom of Division 2 after losing to Wales in their last Royal London Women’s County One-Day Championship game.
Result: Wales (179/4; Rachel Priest 84; Lauren Parfitt 58; Martha Bilsland 3-14) win against Durham (175 all out; Layla Tipton 29, 2-29) by 6 wickets.
Wales won comfortably after bowling Durham all out in the first innings to then claim the game in only 28.5 overs.
Layla Tipton and Laura Ellison posted the highest totals for Durham with 29 and 28 respectively but the team struggled to defend their score in the second.
Put in, Durham found themselves against a challenging bowling side with Ffion Wynne opening the action for Wales with a maiden over. It was only after another four that the first wicket fell when Wynne pinned Laura Hockaday lbw for 4.
Tipton provided more resistance at the crease and joined by Rachel Hopkins, they upped the score to 51 before Lauren Parfitt caught both out in consecutive overs.
Seren Hughes took two, followed by a treble from Martha Bilsland to push Durham down the batting order. As Wales rose the pace, Durham’s batters struggled to come to grips with it, though Laura Ellison at least raged against it with 28.
Durham were 171/9 after 47 overs but Sara Jenkins ended the innings when she ran Louise McCarthey out.
Wales were chasing 176 to win and Durham were clear they needed to bowl the side out for the win. Laura Ellison was quick to the task with a catch off Rachael Petherick’s ball to dismiss opening batter Gabby Basketter.
Ellison repeated the same to catch Seren Hughes out only five overs later but the visitors’ resistance with the bat came primarily from Rachel Priest.
Priest paired with Lauren Parfitt provided a strong partnership of 116 and despite Becky Glen’s superb catch to finally dismiss Priest, Durham made the breakthrough too late – Priest had already hit seven boundaries and another six over the boundary.
Wales needed 31 in 27 overs and although Becky Glen fielded for a catch again, Wales didn’t experience much of a setback and won the game in 28.5 overs.