Emeralds polish Gunn off

England's Jenny Gunn is writing a diary for ecb.co.uk during the 2007 summer. Follow her exclusively here on ecb.co.uk

As with every cricket season in England, April seems to be a right scorcher, then come the first round of league games for women’s cricket, cue the rain.

Our season has been going for six weeks now and three games have been called off already. Anyway, enough of me moaning about the weather and on with the cricket.

June 2 was our first Super 4s game at Loughborough University. I had a very late free transfer from the Emeralds to the Diamonds, and our first game was against last year’s winners the Sapphires.

We were put into bat and scoring was difficult due to some tight bowling and a slow wicket.

Kate Oakenfold batted well for 27, I scored a slow 51 and Nicky Shaw 43 and Lynsey Askew (Ms Cricket) 31, to help us to a total of 196 for four.

Nic set the tone with her opening spell, getting an early breakthrough. This brought Claire (Tails) Taylor to the crease and, after a few early edges, she settled and was looking good until chipping to Ms Cricket at cover off Jo Watts for 45.

From there they struggled and only Kathryn Doherty made 29 as we bowled them out for 154. Jo Watts being the pick of the bowlers with 3-10. Good start to the competition.

The very next day we were at Trent College to play my old team the Emeralds, where we lost the toss and were asked to field. Lynsey bowled really well with the new ball, removing both openers Beth Morgan and Laura Joyce.

Batting seemed difficult again until Charlotte Horton came to the crease. Using her long levers from her 6ft height to smash two huge sixes in her 23 off 28 balls.

Jane Smit batted well even though I think she forgot I was on the other team as she kept hitting the ball to me all the time. She even hit the ball straight to me at mid-wicket and got ran out for 39. They ended on 167.

Walking out to the middle, I got a few comments for being a green reject and thought this was going to be a long day.

I was wrong - I was out for 4 but before that I ran out my opening partner so didn’t really have the best game against my old team.

Oakey batted well again, especially in the face of a great opening spell from Kelly Evenson and Nicky (Dizz) Myers. Oakey made 44 but wickets kept falling.

We showed a lot of fight down the order, with Isa scoring 29, Tamsin 13 and Charlotte Russell 10 but still fell 15 runs short. Dizz was the pick of the bowlers with 3-26.

Two weeks later we made the trip down to Reading for round three. Today we were playing the Rubies, who had won two out of two so far.

We won the toss and chose to bat and were going well with 40 off the 10 overs. Both Ebony and I said how nice it was to bat on. We shouldn’t have said anything: Ebony was trapped LBW by Laura Marsh (Boggy) for 10, I was run out for 28 and Nic was caught at mid off for 2.

Oakey and Tamsin got us back on track before Oakey some how managed to find fine leg and was out for 27. We finished with 171, with Tamsin 45, Lynsey 25 and Isa 14 chipping in at the end.

Again we got an early wicket, which was massive for us as it was Sarah Taylor. We kept it quite tight but somehow Jenny Halstead kept finding the gaps before a great catch behind the stumps by Sophie Le Marchand.

That saw the arrival of Lydia Greenway, who is in fine form, who had scored 50 or more in each Super 4s innings so far.

We had them 57 for three but yet again Lydia made another fifty before top-edging one to me at mid-wicket. She was well supported by Caroline Atkins before I finally got my first wicket of Super Fours, bowling her for 46. They put on a partnership of 107, which was enough to win them the game in the 47th over.

After the game it was straight back in the car for our two-and-a-half-hour journey back to the Midlands for our club game the next day.

Arriving at the ground, I was still shocked the game was on as we have had so much rain and the wicket was quite wet.

I was praying that I would lose the toss and was happy when the opposition decided to bat first. Batting was very difficult due to the conditions and some fine bowling from Dizz and Charlotte Horton, but we didn’t take a wicket until the score was on 27.

We had a guest playing for us today as we were one short - ex-England player and winner of the best fielder of the series award for catch B in 2001, Kate Lowe.

She was a little shocked when I asked her to bowl but she did well and took 1-33. Meir Heath finished on 106, with Jasmine Titmus taking 5-23 from her 10 overs.

The batting order was shuffled around today but it didn’t stop us from knocking off the runs with 15 overs to spare. We won by four wickets with Jane Smit keeping us together with 43 not out.

So coming up next weekend is another journey to play at the home of women’s cricket at Taunton for round four of Super 4s . I’ll be looking to get one back on the Rubies.