Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com. Yorkshire Academy bowler Amelia Love impressed on the opening day of the new summer.
Yorkshire Women’s coach Rich Pyrah heaped praise on teenaged debutant Amelia Love following her fantastic four wickets in defeat against Worcestershire at Headingley today.
Love, 16, was Yorkshire’s standout bowler with 4-39 from 10 overs of seam, well supported by three wickets for Beth Langston as they limited the Pears to 228 all out.
Unfortunately, in reply, Yorkshire were bowled out for 114, losing by 114 runs.
Sterre Kalis made 51, with Ami Campbell’s 13 representing the only other double-figure score in the innings.
Love is a product of the Bolton Percy Cricket Club and is on the county’s Academy programme. She has impressed the coaching staff through the winter and again on their recent pre-season tour of Abu Dhabi.
Of the GCSE student, Pyrah said: “We’ve seen it all winter.
“We’ve done a lot with her and told her to run in hard and be aggressive. And every time she’s played on tour – a warm-up game last week as well – it’s just been so consistent.
“She hits a good line and a length and has such a repeatable action.
“And she’s got her rewards today.
“For a 16-year-old girl, just gone 16 as well, to do that in a senior women’s game on her debut, it just shows the talent that she has. So it’s really exciting to see.”
Asked what Love’s biggest strengths are as a bowler, Pyrah said: “She gets right behind the ball, and her best delivery is one which swings away late to the right-hander.
“And, then, because she’s still pretty young, sometimes she doesn’t finish her action often and it goes full. She can beat a lot of batters with the yorkers because she’s got a yard of pace.”
And the coach continued: “Amelia’s a very quiet girl. When I started working with her in November, she didn’t say a word for about a month. And I thought I’d done something wrong!
“But then we took her on tour, and she started to come out of the shell.
“Being around some senior girls on tour has really helped. In Beth Langston, she has probably got one of the best role-models to have.”
Despite her excellence today, Love is not going to play every game as Yorkshire look to take a softly, softly approach with her development whilst prioritising her education.
And on today’s performance, Pyrah said: “It was disappointing. But it is what it is – a massive learning for them.
“Worcester didn’t have much pace. “It was very slow, so we had to create the pace, which is probably a little bit different to what we’ve been used to in all our training and tour matches.
“I knew we were going to be up and down this year, so the big thing for me is how we learn from that, how we’re going to combat not having much pace on the ball.
“Cricket’s all about playing what’s in front of you and match awareness and knowledge.
“That’s the one thing we really need to work on and make sure that we improve quickly.
“230 was a below par score today. It was a good pitch. But you could see the spinners – there was a lack of pace even on the spin – and we got a little bit stuck.”
Fifty-maker Kalis now heads to Warwickshire for a season-long loan spell playing Tier 1 cricket. She will be available to Yorkshire for the T20 County Cup competition, starting next month. Aside from that, Yorkshire will not see too much more from the Netherlands international in 2025.
