Wanderers and Sportsmans win again as they look to have finals locked in with four games left

The women’s cricket grand final teams look to already be set in stone as Wanderers and Sportsmans continued their winning ways on Sunday.

Though four qualifying games — a third of the season proper — remain, there’s little between them and both are miles ahead of CVN and Towns.

At the Rec, Towns’ Michelle McDonald won the toss and sent the Wanderers in to test their defences on turf.

Dirranie Kirby broke through both the Wanderers openers as Charlie and Chelsea Bidwell both fell for ducks to have them 2-6 after the first three overs.

It was a sticky pitch with balls holding up on the surface and making timing difficult with many coming through too early on the shot.

However, they couldn’t remove the third Bidwell Olivia who topscored with 28 with Abby Green (11) the only other batter to make it to double figures helping them to 7-82

Wanderers would have hoped for more but runouts for both Bidwell and Green pared back their total, while Towns would have been disappointed they gave away a few extra runs with some sloppy fielding and poor backing up at times.

Still, Towns would have thought that gettable though having been shot out for 20 runs last week McDonald had stressed the need for a more patient approach.

Their openers did survive the first six overs but it was slow going with just 17 runs scored after the first 10 overs.

Ashlyn Thompson and Bidwell were economical and it was continued by Abby Green (2-2) and Chelsea Bidwell (2-8).

Only Janelle Phillips (25 not out) looked composed though unable to fully break the shackles and Towns finished with 7-60.

At Mazzuchelli Oval Sportsmans were sent into bat by the Rams and lost only one wicket in their innings to finish with 1-113.

Amanda Gundry (54 not out) and Sarah Prickett (32 not out) put on an unbeaten 88 to post a total that was always going to be too much for Rams, especially on turf.

They never looked like chasing down the target instead seeking to bat out their overs after also collapsing on turf last week for just 23 runs.

Charlene Millet dug in and top scored with 22 off 56 balls with Stacey Jerrard (2-5) the pick of the bowlers as Jo Walker (1-6) became the first in the four-year-old competition to claim 50 wickets when she bowled Maggie Mills to go with bringing up her 500th run last week.

Rams finished on 5-52 off their 20 overs.