Kent women have been presented with their County Championship trophy, alongside LV County Champions Lancashire, by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, Patron of The Lord’s Taverners.

Thirteen of Kent Women - those who played the majoirty, if not all, of the games in their highly successful summer, along with coach Stuart Eddicott, manager Julie Beaumont and scorer Lin Martin were all honoured to be presented their 2011 County Championship medals by The Duke of Edinburgh at the end of a very special day hosted by The Lord and Ladies Taverners.

The celebration was primarily for the mens and womens champions for the season, with Barry Norman and Angela Ripon hosting a lunch time reception for Lancashire men’s team were celebrating their first county championship title for 77 years, and  Kent Women who last held their county trophy aloft in 2009.

Also present from Kent were Jason Weaver, Malcolm Ing and Tony Rose, all of whom have been a great support to the team off the field.

It was the last chance for the girls to meet up before five of them went off to South Africa, most of the others back to university or to their new jobs and Julie, after a holiday with Tammy in Johannesburg - hopefully to watch her play  for her country - leaves to settle in Boston USA.

Some more photos from the day:

From left to right : Hannah Jelfs, Jo Watts and Emily Gerke

Susie Rowe and Stu Eddicott

From left to right : Tammy Beaumant, Elysa Hubbard and Alice Davidson Richards

 All photographs copyright and consent of Lin Martin

Both teams enjoyed a champagne reception and lunch at Taverner HQ prior to their royal engagement, where captains Charlotte Edwards and Glenn Chapple were presented with their Championship pennants by ECB Chief Executive David Collier, before leaving for Buckingham Palace.

This rounds off a fantastic year for Kent women, who also won the 2011 T20 cup. In September, England selectors named five Kent women in the 14-player squad for the England women’s tour of South Africa to take place later this month.

Charlotte Edwards, Lydia Greenway, Tammy Beaumont, Laura Marsh and Susie Rowe will be in the squad based in Potchefstroom from 17th to the 31st October, and will play a three match One Day International series and a three match Twenty20 series against South Africa women at Senwes Park.

The Regional finals of the T20 took place simultaneously at three locations. Kent played Essex, Middlesex and Sussex on a ‘round robin’ over two very hot days in August, with the two top teams meeting in a ‘final’ at the end of the second day. Kent, having been unbeaten in their three games, then met Sussex again in the final and suffered a narrow defeat. This left us all waiting on the results of the other two centers and the frantic use of a calculator, to see if Kent qualified as the ‘best of the rest’, to take the fourth place for a finals day against, as it turned out, Sussex, Berkshire and Yorkshire.

The County Twenty20 CupThe weather forecast for finals day was not brilliant, but we arrived in Shenley at the Denis Compton Oval for the draw for the semi-finals. Kent were drawn against Sussex in the semi’s - this would be our fifth meeting of the season, with honors even after two championship and two T20 games, Kent were determined to make it 3-2 in their favour.

Kent won the toss and decided to put Sussex in, but, at one stage, it looked like the weather would be the ultimate winner, when rain came down and took 37 minutes of play (although no overs were deducted), from the Sussex innings. Alice Davidson Richards took a wicket in every one of her overs, finishing with 4-13, Jo Watts took 2-24 and, together with Charlotte Edwards 2-10, the Sussex  total of 101-9 looked within reach.

Sussex, however were not so sure, and when Charlotte Edwards was caught by Georgia Adams for 1 and Tammy Beaumont also went quickly for just 10, the fall of Lydia Greenway just 3 runs later meant Kent were 37-3. Laura Marsh, who was batting at 2, was running out of partners, but she kept her nerve, and with some support from the lower order, eventually took Kent past the total with 3 balls to spare - leaving her on 55*.

Kent were then ready to face Berkshire, who had also had a very close game with Yorkshire, winning by just 10 runs.

The weather was now settling, and a hint of sunshine appeared as Berkshire came out to bat, having won the toss. Tammy Beaumont was kept busy behind the stumps with three stumpings and a catch, with other runs outs and two catches; one by Charlotte Edwards and one for Jo Watts, it was the fielding that kept the Berks total down to 73 ao after 19.1 overs.

It took just 11 overs for Kent to make the 74 required, with Tammy Beaumont finishing on 26* and Lydia Greenway on 20* .  So the women take their second trophy of the season back to Canterbury - well done - County Champions and T20 Champions - what a great 2011 season!

THE WINNERS AND COUNTY CHAMPIONS - KENT!

After the hard work, time for enjoying the moment

The latest news we have is that Kent are confirmed as the last semi-finalist in the Women’s T20 competition. 

Kent Women played the Regional finals day at the beginning of August in a group featuring Essex, Middlesex and Sussex. Kent won all three round robin games. 

The high-lights had to be Laura Marshs’ 64 runs off 30 balls 9 (including 10x4s and 2x6s) together with Susie Rowe’s 47 off 21 deliveries (7x4s and 1x6 )in the match against Essex where Kent amassed 199 from their 20 overs.

Unfortunately Kent narrowly missed going through automatically to the finals day by right when Sussex overtook their total with 3 balls to spare at the end of 2 days of competition.

However, this week Kent Women were confirmed as the best runner up from the three regions and a four teams final day has now been set up of 17th September where they will meet Sussex, Berkshire and Yorkshire.

Taken on Sunday 31st July 2011 these are Kent’s very successful women

And in close up (with more to follow) here’s the team!

The season is over half way through and Kent Women have a 100% record of wins in the matches that have been played.

This is the mid-season report from Lin Martin:

We began the campaign by travelling to the picturesque Brighton College where Kent took on Sussex. Having been put into bat, Sussex never really made a start and finished on 105 all out in 42.2 overs. Clare Crewdson took 4 - 22 and Laura Marsh 3 - 28.  In reply Charlotte Edwards 64* was supported by Tammy Beaumont (17) and Laura Marsh 18* taking 32.2 overs to get the winning runs.

Kent played host to Middlesex next. In this rain affected game J Halstead top scored for the visitors with 85, Laura Marsh took 3 wickets for 38 runs. After losing their first wicket with the first ball of the innings, Kent rallied and Charlotte Edwards top scored with 73. The match finished after the second stop for rain, with Kent winning on run rate. 

The long trip to Yorkshire saw less than 40 overs of Kent’s innings before rain set in for the day.

Back home the following week at Upchurch, Nottinghamshire struggled for runs making 163 in their 50 overs.  Kent took just 26.5 overs to achieve their goal with Charlotte Edwards made 73 not out before retiring and leaving Tammy Beaumont, 68*and Lydia Greenway 7* to polish off the remaining runs. 

After a four week break for the international matches, We were away to Berkshire. On the playing fields of Eton Kent batted first, amassing 268 - 4 ( Charlotte Edwards 105  Tammy Beaumont 54 ) and then dismissing the home side for just 131, leading wicket taker was Alice Davidson-Richards taking 3 - 32 .

Our match this week was against Berkshire again, this time at Hayes CC.  As has been the story all season our bowling and fielding was very good - a spectacular catch from Hannah Jelfs was just one of the highlights as we took all 10 Berkshire wickets for just 102 in 35.4 overs. 

As the batting bonus points are based on run rate Kent needed to get their 103 within 24 overs to get maximum points - Tammy Beaumont and Susie Rowe made this look very easy, taking less than 20 overs to reach the target.