It was a tough Sunday for the club’s three senior sides who were in action, with three losses recorded despite a number of impressive individual performances.

At Upminster Park the Women’s 1st XI narrowly lost out to Hutton in their top of the table clash in EWPL Division One. Upminster decided to bat first and moved into a good position despite the early loss of Paige Roche. Harri Goodey and Felicity Russell took the score to 98-1 at a good pace before Goodey fell to Georgie Manek for 33. Unfortunately for the home side the innings unravelled somewhat from that point, mainly due to an excellent spell from Manek. Rusell fell for 43, caught and bowled by Manek, and Upminster soon found themselves 109-9. Evie Page and Keya Shah gave their side something to bowl out with a valiant tenth wicket stand of 27, Shah ending unbeaten on 17, but with Manek claiming 5-30 Upminster were bowled out for 136. Lauren Pamenter (32) and Anaya Shankar (34) put on 53 for the first wicket in the Hutton reply before Goodey made the breakthrough for Upminster, but the visitors moved to 108-2 and looked to be cruising to victory. Shah then produced a brilliant three wicket burst to suddenly open the game up, and with Goodey claiming another wicket and skipper Zoe Quested claiming two victims Upminster were suddenly back in the game. However, Manek completed an excellent all-round performance with 14 not out as she saw her side to a three wicket win.

Despite an excellent start, it turned into a tough afternoon for the 2nd XI as they were beaten at Billericay. Early wickets for Lauren Plumb (2-50), Bethan Libby (2-27) and Jami Armes (2-12) saw the home side fall to 49-5 before they recovered well thanks to their lower-middle order. Kira Churchland (46), Amrit Kaur (41) and Seren Green (32*) led the Billericay recovery with Green and Kaur adding 78 for the final wicket. Mila Price and Shaniya Popat (2-22) picked up late wickets for Upminster as the home side were bowled out for 232. Karen Burley (16) and Georgia Hayes (20) took Upminster to 43-1 in reply before Hayes’ departure led to a collapse. Kaur and Evie Baldwin claimed three wickets each as the visitors were bowled out for 78.

The Sunday League XI fell to their first defeat of the season against Scintilla at Gallows Corner. Scintilla made a fast start to their innings with Taqi Ahmad and Mohammad Junaid finding the boundary regularly, and at 171-3 it looked like Upminster would be chasing a huge total. However, Upminster came back into the game when five wickets fell in seven balls, four of them falling in a remarkable over from Callum Berry (4-33). Dylan Narbheram bowled well to pick up 2-58 and Scintilla were bowled out for 244 with more than five overs of their innings not used. Opener Zoran Suneel made 32 for Upminster but wickets fell regularly as Scintilla took control. Michael Pedrick (22) and Berry (31) briefly gave Upminster hope, but it was not enough as they were bowled out for 118 with Adnan Walayat taking 5-20 for Scintilla.

It was a busy day for our junior sides with seven games taking place throughout the day. There were wins for our U9 Ultras, U10 Ultras, U10 Ultimate, U11 Girls and U14 Ultimate and losses for our U8 Ultras and U13 Girls. There is also a busy week ahead for our junior teams with 14 games planned between Monday and Friday.