Bryce heroics not enough to save The Blaze from Metro Bank One-Day Cup defeat

Lancashire Women beat The Blaze home and away in the league phase and pulled off a five-run victory in this match despite being without the competition’s top runscorer Emma Lamb and Eve Jones.

With the bat they recovered from 52 for four to post 241 for six after Scotland international Ailsa Lister hit a career-best 96 from 91 balls and captain Ellie Threlkeld a season’s best 92 from 128.

Seamers Grace Potts took three for 32 and Kate Cross (three for 47) then led an excellent bowling display, restricting the home side to 236 for nine.

Bryce and Georgia Elwiss (55) combined to add 150 for the fourth wicket in The Blaze's reply but a superbly disciplined Lancashire attack ensured that The Blaze were never on top of the required scoring rate and that pressure paid off for them as the home side, 179 for three with 10 overs remaining, ultimately fell short.

Lister and Threlkeld shared a 166-run partnership for the fifth Lancashire wicket.

Seamers Cassidy McCarthy (two for 27) and Orla Prendergast, who conceded only 26 runs in 10 overs, impressed among The Blaze bowlers.

Asked to bat first, Lancashire Women found themselves in trouble at 33 for three after 10 overs.

McCarthy uprooted Gaby Lewis’s middle stump and had Seren Smale caught at short backward square, the left-armer Grace Ballinger finding the edge to have Fi Morris

Alice Clarke fell to a good catch on the legside boundary as she pulled Prendergast and with their opponents 52 for four in the 18th, The Blaze were well on top

But Threlkeld brought her experience to bear in guiding her younger partner through a testing period before the pair kicked on from the 35-over mark, upping the scoring rate to seven per over for the next 12 before Lister, spared by the normally safe hands of Kathryn Bryce at deep midwicket on 66, went down the pitch to Kirstie Gordon’s left-arm spin and paid the price.

Threlkeld departed in the next over, run out going for a second by McCarthy’s arrow throw from the point boundary.

The Blaze would have seen chasing 242 as well within their compass, although less so after matching their opponents in losing three wickets in their opening powerplay.

Mahika Gaur bowled Sarah Bryce with a full delivery before Kate Cross removed Georgie Boyce, caught and bowled off a leading edge, and Prendergast, who stepped across to be leg before for a second-ball duck, leaving The Blaze in peril at 37 for three.

But just as Threlkeld and Lister rescued Lancashire, Elwiss joined Kathryn Bryce to turn their side’s innings around. Yet though Bryce passed fifty for the seventh time this season from 64 balls, none of Threlkeld’s six bowlers conceded runs easily.

Bryce brought up her hundred from 121 balls as the partnership ticked over to 150, but the big breakthrough for Lancashire came shortly afterwards as Elwiss was caught at backward point on the reverse sweep off Fi Morris, with 55 still needed off 52 balls.

The wicket opened up one end for the visitors and after Marie Kelly, Michaela Kirk and and Lucy Higham all went cheaply, The Blaze needed 33 from 18 balls, which came down to nine off the last over, but when Bryce holed out to mid-off to give Potts her third wicket, their chance had gone.