Loughborough Lightning were an English women's

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team based at

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public university, public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university sinc ...

. They were formed in 2016 to compete in the inaugural season of the

Women's Cricket Super League The Women's Cricket Super League (WCSL), known as the Kia Super League (KSL) for sponsorship reasons, was a semi-professional women's Twenty20 cricket competition in England and Wales operated by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). The comp ...

. They primarily played their home matches at the Haslegrave Ground. They were coached by Rob Taylor and were captained by Georgia Elwiss. The team was partnered with Loughborough University. Together with the

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of seven players. The primary objective is to shoot a ball through the defender's goal ring while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own. It is one of a ...

team and the women's rugby union team, the cricket team was one of three women's sports teams based at Loughborough University that used the Loughborough Lightning name. In 2020, following reforms to the structure of women's domestic cricket, some elements of the Loughborough Lightning were retained for a new team, named just

Lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...

and representing a broader region.

History

2016–2019: Women's Cricket Super League

Loughborough Lightning were formed in 2016 to compete in the new

, partnering with

and playing across the Midlands. In the first season of the WCSL, the Lightning finished 3rd in the group stage, progressing to the semi-final, where they were beaten by eventual runners-up Western Storm. The following season,

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

, saw Loughborough miss out on Finals Day, finishing 4th with two wins.

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

was Loughborough Lightning's most successful season, as they topped the group with 7 wins from 10 games, progressing straight to the final. However, they were defeated by Surrey Stars by 66 runs after the Stars' Lizelle Lee hit a century. Lightning bowler Kirstie Gordon was the leading wicket-taker of the tournament, with 17. In

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, the Lightning again progressed to Finals Day after finishing 2nd in the group with 7 victories, but were beaten in the semi-final by the Southern Vipers. Following this season, women's cricket in England was restructured and Loughborough Lightning were disbanded as part of the reforms; however they survived in spirit for a new team,

, who represented a larger area, but retained some of their players.

Home grounds

Players

Final squad, 2019 season * No. denotes the player's squad number, as worn on the back of their shirt. * denotes players with international caps.

Overseas players

* Dane van Niekerk –

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

(2016) *

Ellyse Perry Ellyse Perry (born 3 November 1990) is an Australian cricketer and former soccer, soccer player. Having debuted for both the Australia women's national cricket team, national cricket and Australia women's national soccer team, national soccer t ...

–

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

(2016–2017) * Sophie Devine –

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

(2016, 2018) * Kristen Beams –

(2017) * Elyse Villani –

(2017–2018) * Rachael Haynes –

(2018) * Mignon du Preez –

(2019) * Chamari Atapattu –

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

(2019) * Hayley Matthews –

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

(2019)

Seasons

Statistics

Overall Results

* Abandoned matches are counted as NR (no result) * Win or loss by super over or boundary count are counted as tied.

Teamwise Result summary

Records

*Highest team total: 174/7, v Southern Vipers on 4 August, 2018. *Lowest team total: 97, v Southern Vipers on 14 August, 2016. *Highest individual score: 91, Dane van Niekerk v Surrey Stars on 12 August, 2016. *Best individual bowling analysis: 3/10, Jenny Gunn v Lancashire Thunder on 22 July, 2018. *Most Runs: 636 in 31 matches, Amy Jones. *Most wickets: 28 wickets in 21 matches, Kirstie Gordon.

References

{{Loughborough University Loughborough Lightning (women's cricket) Women's Cricket Super League teams 2016 establishments in England

Women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

Cricket clubs established in 2016