LAST week saw a busy week for girl's cricket as the Devon School's Fetivals got under way in each district of the county. 

On Monday we held the South district festival at South Devon Cricket Club, Newton Abbot. Four teams arrived on the day - some coming even though it was a non-pupil day! Two teams from Oldway (Paignton) and a team from Bradley Barton (Newton Abbot) and Curledge Street (Paignton) spent the day in the sun playing some competitive games and devleoping their cricket skills.

Oldway teams greatly added to the atmosphere of the day with their enthusiastic approch to cricket, even developing a song 'We will, we will win this!' to the tune of Queen's 'We will, we will rock you' 

Curledge Street were very new to the game of cricket, but with great determination and some extra practise between games, they all imporved greatly and were over the moon at their acheivements and the draw they had with one of the Oldway teams at the end of the afternoon. 

After each team had played everyone, the winners to go through to the final were Oldway One and Bradley Barton. 

Tuesday was a very different matter in the West and unfortunately it rained all day and the festival had to be cancelled. Whilst the festival will be replayed, the final is next week and two teams had to be drawn from a hat. Horrabridge and Mary Deans will attend the final. 

Wednesday saw us travel to Ottery St Mary CC for our biggest festival of the week in the East. Eleven teams entered, so too many to mention, and the field looked amazing whilst teams played in all the different coloured shirts and girls bowled, batted, fielded and cartwheeled their way through the afternoon. The rain stayed away and each team played at least three games of cricket during the afternoon.

As the afternoon drew to a close, the games became more competitive as we played to find the winners, who were eventally Stoke Hill and Stockland, who now go through to the final. 

We finished the week at North Devon Cricket Club at Instow, where the eight teams entered showed their true grit and dedication to cricket as we battled through four seasons in one day to find the winners for the tournanment. When the sun shone the afternoon was beautiful for cricket, with the eventual winners being Woolacombe, who in one match scored a straggering 303 runs, and Marland who fought their way to the final in a very competitive match against Eden Park. 

Despite the day missed, it was a very successful week and the eight teams who won their festivals will now meet each other later this week at Bovey Tracey Cricket Club to see goes through to the regional tournaments in Bristol. 

Good luck to all the girls taking part and a big thankyou to all the cricket clubs and memebers of staff who have made the festivals possible.