‘We are a stacked side’ the words of Grace Harris after her side’s victory in the inaugural Woman’s Vitality Blast Final beating the Birmingham Bears by 5 wickets. Surrey’s superstar batting line-up containing the likes of  Bryony Smith, Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Sophia Dunkley, Alice Capsey and the aforementioned Harris is the envy of women’s domestic game in the country and it again proved the difference. Queenslander Harris, was the star with a brilliant knock of 63* off of just 33 balls, to secure glory for Surrey on their home ground by 5 wickets, against a plucky Birmingham Bears side. The finals day as a whole did show that the domestic game’s depth is greatly improving, with 5,761 fans in attendance, a domestic record in the UK, treated to a day of high quality cricket.

Surrey skipper Smith, won the toss and put the Bears into bat and her choice was shown to be correct, with the Midlands outfit losing 3 wickets in the powerplay. Left arm seamer Alexa Stonehouse was particularly impressive, bowling Meg Austin and the destructive Issy Wong for 31 off just 18 balls.  

Things went from bad to worse for the Bears as Sterre Kalis then ran herself out trying to take two to Ryana MacDonald-Gay on the deep cover boundary. It was perhaps not a surprise that the Dutch batter showed some mental fatigue with it being her fourth game in two days and her second final. Kalis had played for her parent club Yorkshire the day before in the Tier 2 blast finals day at Northampton.

The Bears were going at a good rate but kept losing wickets with Amu Surankumar stumped after slick work from Kira Chathli off the bowling of Phoebe Franklin. Then Nat Wraith was deceived by a Mcdonald-Gay slower ball as the keeper departed for 22.

Franklin finished with figures 2-16 off her 4 overs and was heaped with praise by Harris in the post game press conference with the Australian international describing the 27 year old as ‘Surrey’s player of the season.

Lauren Harris gave the Bears some hope with some large blows but fell to leg spinner Dani Gregory hitting a long-hop to Wyatt-Hodge on the deep midwicket boundary.

Skipper Georgia Davis then barbequed herself running a needless second just as the Bears were looking to be getting to a respectable total on a good track.

Millie Taylor scored some gritty late runs to help the Bears scramble their way to 153-9 but in truth that always felt under-par against Surrey’s vaunted batting line up.

Surrey’s run chase started in shaky fashion though with Em Arlott picking the early wicket of Danni Wyatt-Hodge who holed out to Hannah Baker on the square leg boundary.

The final ball of the powerplay claimed another victim with Amu Surenkumar accounting for the Surrey captain, Smith. It was 42-2 at that stage and that quickly became 3 down as leg-spinner accounted for Alice Capsey stumped turning the ball past her outside edge for 15.

Harris and Sophia Dunkley, two great players for a crisis came together and looked imperious. Dunkley in particular struck the ball straight incredibly sweetly.  Her flow was disrupted out of nowhere with some brilliant work from Nat Wraith to stump her off the bowling off Surenkumar for 23 off of 13 balls. Harris kept going scoring a chanceless half century. She would finish on 63*, 22 years after the Surrey men had also beaten the Bears in the inaugural men’s blast final.

Much like the Blast result 22 years ago, it felt like a new beginning for the domestic game and this one was certainly a positive one. The fielding which has been criticized quite rightly in the woman’s game was impressive with youngsters Perrin and Serenkumar big standouts. This type of competition can only be good for the woman’s national side in their quest to keep up with powerhouses of Australia and India.