Felsted’s U15 girls are county cricket champions!

 Felsted’s Under 15 girls had to triumph over challenging weather conditions as well as their opponents from Bancroft’s School to claim the Essex County cricket trophy.

In a final delayed from the summer term, the two sides met on Felsted’s windswept prestigious main pitch ‘The Front’, where Felsted won the toss and chose to bowl first. A good performance by the Felsted girls restricted the visitors to 71 runs. Felsted’s lower middle order steadied their innings after early wickets fell and hit the required runs to claim a narrow victory.

‘It wasn’t typical cricket weather, but a brilliant day for the Felsted girls nonetheless and one to be remembered for a long time to come,’ said Felsted’s Head of Girls’ Cricket Lissy McLeod, who a few days later lifted the national Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy as a member of the winning Sunrisers women’s regional cricket team.

Lissy, who divides her time between her professional cricket career and her role developing girls’ cricketing skills at Felsted, represented Birmingham Phoenix in this year’s Hundred competition and plays county cricket for Berkshire.

‘It’s a great combination for me to play at the highest level and also use my skills and experience to help develop the next generation,’ says Lissy. ‘So many more girls are interested in cricket now and participation at Felsted is growing rapidly, which is great news for the future of the women’s game.’

Cricket is a core sport throughout Felsted’s Senior School, with additional training and coaching sessions for keen and able players and a full fixture list for both boys’ and girls’ teams. The school is perennially selected as one of the top cricketing schools in the country by ‘The Cricketer’.

Cricket at the school is led by former professional Jason Gallian (Essex, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and England) and Felsted has produced many first-class and international cricketers over the past 200 years, notably Derek Pringle (Essex and England), Nick Knight (Essex, Warwickshire and England), John Stephenson (Essex, Hampshire and England), and current professional players Jordan Cox (Essex and England), Grace Poole (Essex), Emma Jones (Essex) and Jessica Olorenshaw (Essex).

As well as Felsted’s famous main cricket pitch, The Front, the school has four grass cricket squares, a 10-lane non-turf pitch net system, two non-turf pitches for games and a five-lane indoor facility on its 90-acre countryside campus.

Felsted School won Boarding School of the Year 2023 at the TES Schools Awards and in March 2024 was appointed by IB-Schools.com as ‘A Top 20 UK IB School for 2023’ for excellence in academic achievement. In 2024 Felsted was also awarded a prestigious Eco-Schools’ Green Flag for their exceptional work in promoting sustainability and raising environmental awareness, and most recently, Felsted was awarded the esteemed ‘Sleep Champion’ status by the Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA).