BRADFORD Park Avenue’s ladies are heading to Lord’s today, after lifting the Countdown Cricket Cup.

The Hundred-inspired five-a-side grassroots tournament was won by Bradford (Park Avenue)’s A team down in Birmingham.

And with them beating their own B team in the final, all 10 players involved have been invited down to Lord’s to watch the men’s and women’s Hundred finals.

Club chairperson Kirsty Gavillet beamed: “It’s pretty amazing what’s happened with the Countdown Cup.

“We knew nothing about it until the BBC approached us, as two sisters at the club, Nabila and Qulzam Qayum, had got in touch with them to promote the club.

“It was a shock that we even got to go down and play in the tournament, let alone win it.

“It was a fantastic initiative and a great way to promote women’s cricket.

“The 10 girls that went down are now going to Lord’s for both Hundred finals, so I just hope the weather holds for them, as the forecast isn’t great.”

You can watch the short BBC video on Avenue's Countdown Cricket Cup journey here.

Meanwhile, last weekend saw Avenue Ladies host their first ever softball festival, and it was a roaring success.

Seven teams turned up, with Alwoodley the winners.

Gavillet was key in organising the tournament, and asked how had it gone, she said: “It was our first festival, and it went brilliantly.

“We wanted to do it last year, but Covid meant we weren’t able to.

“We put a lot of effort into it this year and seven teams competed on what was a fun cricket-filled day.

“It was a knockout competition that lasted from 10am to 1pm and Alwoodley were the winners on the day.

“That was unprecedented for us as we hadn’t lost in so long, but all credit to Alwoodley, they were deserving winners of the trophy.

“Straight after lunch, we had stuff on for the kids, and we played our hardball league game in the afternoon.

“Most of the women stuck around to watch that, and we had about 150 of them come down on the day. The hardball game shows what those softball players can achieve going forward too.

“The whole day went beyond my expectations, so roll on next year.”

As for that Yorkshire Women and Girls Cricket League clash, which Avenue lost to Rockingham Colliery, Gavillet said: “It was actually our first defeat of the season, as we’d won every other game up to now.

“But we’ve got the Super Eight final coming up this Sunday, and we should be able to get promotion from Division Two of the league in 2022.

“This first year has been incredible for us, and shows how hard we’ve worked.

“We hope we can get promoted next year as we want to be challenged in the league above.

“We might get beaten more, but we’ll learn from that.”