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By Peter Della Penna in Queens, New York

North West Phoenix captain Doris Francis scored an unbeaten century to rescue her side from early trouble, guiding them to a three-wicket win over New York Warriors at Idlewild Park in Queens, N.Y., on Friday afternoon at the USACA Women’s Championship. In the other matches on day one, Hollywood Rebels easily defeated the USACA Developmental squad while Indomatie Goordial-John and Candacy Atkins scored centuries to lead Tri-State Lynx to a resounding win over North West Rockstars.

Warriors won the toss and elected to bat on a hot sunny morning and got off to a brilliant start, scoring at better than eight per over in the first 20. Shirley Bonaparte and Joan Alexander scored half-centuries for Warriors, but Bonaparte started to flag towards the end of her knock getting tired between the wickets and wound up being run out for 51 to make the score 169 for 3 in the 21st over, ending a 128-run third wicket partnership.

Alexander followed soon after, pulling a long hop from off-spinner Claudine Beckford straight to Marlene Subhashini at midwicket for 61 and from there Warriors collapsed to be all out for 214 in 33.5 overs. Beckford finished with 3 for 43 in eight overs to lead the way for Phoenix.

The failure to bat out their overs proved quite costly for the Warriors in the end. The Warriors put on early pressure in the field, just as they had when batting as Alexander and Catherine Joy Jones bowled superb spells with the new ball. Jones took 2 for 27 in her first seven overs while Alexander was generating plenty of away swing to trouble the top order, trapping opener Delkash Shahriarian LBW before clean bowling Beulah Pidakala and Subhashini to leave Phoenix in a massive hole at 30 for 5 after the first ball of the 12th over.

Francis, who came in at number six, was then joined at the crease by Anahita Arora and the two calmly saw off the rest of Alexander’s opening spell before rebuilding the innings in stunning fashion. Francis punished anything short from Samantha Ramautar and Grace Richards while Arora nudged and knocked the ball around for ones and twos. The pair added 100 for the sixth wicket before Arora was run out for 30 setting off for a single to the off side that Francis showed no interest in.

Another wicket fell 15 runs later, Petula Felicien fell for 1 to give Alexander her fourth scalp and that’s when Francis started to assert herself, coming down the track to the spinners at every opportunity to clip through the on side while taking singles off the last ball of the over to keep strike. Francis survived a sharp caught and bowled chance on 65, but cruised to her century afterwards off 101 balls. With victory in sight, she also was let off on a missed stumping attempt on 109. She stayed to the end however, walking off 115 not out with 11 fours. The winning run was brought up by a leg side wide.

Image (right): Doris Francis walks off unbeaten on 115 for the North West Phoenix. [Courtesy - Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

At Gateway Park in Brooklyn, Indomatie Goordial-John and Candacy Atkins both scored centuries for Tri-State Lynx as they defeated North West Rockstars by 202 runs. Both players retired out shortly after crossing 100. Goordial-John then took 3 for 19 in seven overs to lead the way for the Lynx in the field.