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On Friday 27 June, the Belgian National Ladies team drove in convoy to Rotterdam to play in the Continental Cup T20 international triangular tournament against Denmark and the Netherlands development side.

First up on Friday evening was the Netherlands development side – made up of Under 15’s and 17’s the standard was high.  Belgium made a valiant effort to score runs but sadly not enough and the Netherlands team got them with wickets and overs to spare.

After a good night’s sleep, Belgian took their place on the field against Denmark Women’s XI. Mhairi Roberts and Jani Mclean were the opened the bowling for Belgium but found it hard going against the a determined Danish batting line-up.  That sentiment was shared by the other Belgian bowlers with the first wicket falling only on the thirteenth thank Ro Lister having Ostergaard caught at point by Susan Parker. Ro was on a roll, and ran Juliet Christensen out two overs later. Runs kept flowing and only two more wickets fell in the 19th by Mhairi Rosie and one in the 20th by Ro Lister. The Danish completed their innings at 186 for 4.

Belgium did their best to match the Danish the in the batting but unfortunately could only score 53 runs in total with Mhairi R and Helene VP not out. Of the 53 runs 23 were due to extras. Top scorer was Ro with 9 runs.

The afternoon saw a secondly friendly game against Denmark with Poppy McGeown on her captaining debut as usual Sara Ashall was unavailable and again the Danish were just too strong.

In the end, Belgium came a brave third but a lot of fun was had by all and we all enjoyed making new friends in European Women’s cricket as well catching up with old ones. Many many thanks to the Royal Netherlands Cricket Board for their organization of the tournament support for Belgium’s participation.

Written by Sevil Oktem & Sara Ashall.