Katie Levick hailed the development of all-rounder Phoebe Turner as she reflected on “one of those days” after Northern Diamonds were beaten in their final Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy group game by fellow semi-final qualifiers South East Stars at Durham today.
The Diamonds were beaten by 156 runs at Seat Unique Riverside, bowled out for 119 in pursuit of 276.
Stars sealed a home semi-final as a result of this win, securing second spot in the table – one point behind group winners the Diamonds.
Levick and company have lost just four times in 14 games, winning nine of those.
And they will play Sunrisers in next Saturday’s semi-final at Headingley.
An obvious positive amidst a damaging defeat was the performance of 21-year-old all-rounder Turner, who returned 2-64 from 10 overs of seam added to a late unbeaten 49 not out.
In the last three RHFT games, Turner’s has returned a career best 6-24 – against Thunder at Southport – added to today’s score with the bat.
Leg-spinner Levick shared 35 with her for the ninth wicket today, when the game was done as the Diamonds advanced from 65-8 to add some respectability to proceedings.
And she said: “Phoebe’s having a really good breakthrough season and showing she’s a very important all-rounder for us.
“She’s done it with the ball already in the last few weeks, and today she got the chance to have a long bat.
“At that stage, we weren’t trying to win the game, but I just told her to be selfish and have an open net in a sense.
“That’s effectively what it was at the stage, and she will go into the semi-finals really confident with bat in hand. She’s been brilliant for us this year.”
This was a rare day when Levick went wicketless, but she added a late 19 with the bat.
“It was one of those days,” she reflected.
“We came here and there was a bit of weather about, and we showed that we were a bit sluggish. We never really got going in any of our disciplines.
“It’s probably good to get that out of our system before next week.
“We’re still really confident. We’ve done well in this league, finished top and today wasn’t a true reflection.
“We won a toss we thought was going to be massive, chose to bowl, and it didn’t do as much under the cloud cover as we were expecting. It was just a nice batting track.
“We let them get a few too many runs due to our fielding, which we know we can lift. With the bat no one stuck in, and you’re always going to struggle to chase down a big total if that’s the case.”
