2024-25 Young Motors Women’s T20 series season wrap: Wanderers win fourth premiership

The 2024-25 Young Motors Women’s T20 series ended on February 15 with Wanderers’ fourth successive premiership.

Runner-up Sporties were as they have been for five years: the second-best team.

But the gulf between them and Wanderers, already cavernous in 2023-24, widened as shown by Wanderers’ emphatic eight-wicket win in the final.

The other sides, Chapman Valley-Northampton and Towns, battled but did play the season’s most compelling games because they were well-matched.

What to do about the disparity in quality? Clearly Towns and CVN need to find some good players and truth be told, Sporties could use a couple.

Another issue is the lack of young women. Many of the best women players are in their 30s and 40s.

It is great they are playing as many wanted to when younger. Now they have a vehicle for that, but it would be heartening if more youth join in.

To the competition, and Wanderers were amazing. They won 13 of 13 games and, going back to the previous summer, boast a 23-game winning streak.

Two of their batters dominated: Abby Green (412 runs at 41.20) and captain Olivia Bidwell (380 at 42.22). Meg Spalding (101 at 33.66) had an impact in her four games.

Their bowling featured five players with 11 or more wickets, led by Sam Biddiscombe (18 wickets at an incredible 2.16) and a much-improved Kasey Maynard (17 at 5.29).

The other three in that list combined for 41 wickets at 4.97. That demonstrates why other teams could only hope to be competitive against the Yellowcaps. Mostly they weren’t.

Sporties, runner-up for a fifth season in a row, did their best. Their batting was led by Sarah Prickett (184 at 30.66), Belinda Burrows (179 at 25.57) and Jess Wake (115 at 14.37).

Captain Jo Walker led their attack (19 wickets at 5.89) and three others, Tia Hatch (15 at 3.86 despite missing five games), Isabelle MacPherson (13 at 13.76) and Wake (10 at 12.90) did well.

CVN’s best batter was a new player in Alexia Wekwerth (141 at 11.75). Next was Kylie Bremner (76 at 7.60).

Bremner (13 wickets at 12.53) led their attack, with Chloe Phillips (11 at 19.09) and Wekwerth (11 at 21.85) next best.

Towns’ best batter was captain Ruth Vorster (223 at 22.30) but a mere 57 was the next best aggregate.

Vorster also led their bowling (15 wickets at 12.93) from Rebekah MacLachlan (13 at 19.07), while Indiana Burns suggested she’s one to watch in 2025-26.