Isle of Man Cricket Association’s senior women’s team made its international debut last week.

The 15-strong side was competing in a T20I multi-nation tournament in Desert Springs, Spain.

Between Friday and Monday the team played four games against Sweden, Norway, Italy and Spain.

The island squad was as follows: Clare Crowe (captain), Lucy Barnett, Kira Buchan, Kim Carney, Ellan Cleator, Becky Corkish, Jo Hicks, Andrea Littlejohns, Finnola Martin, Danielle Murphy, Rachel Overman, Catherine Perry, Jasmin Pullen, Alanya Thorpe and Becky Webster.

The Manx team got off to the best possible start by thrashing Norway to claim a maiden victory by a whopping 10 wickets.

The islanders won the toss and chose to bowl, and an excellent display in the field and with the ball saw Norway bowled out for only 46 runs.

Perry led with figures of three wickets for 13, followed by Barnett 2-2, Thorpe 2-10 and Murphy 1-14 and a run-out each for Corkish and Cleator.

The Isle of Man wasted little time in reaching their total, thanks largely to a brilliant opening partnership between Barnett 16 (15) and Carney 24 (12).

The latter hit excellently through the leg side and punished anything short, while Barnett played some fantastic drives and duly picked up the player of the match plaudits, as voted for by the umpires.

The second game at Desert Springs saw the team play hosts Spain, with Littlejohns, Pullen and Buchan all making their T20 international debuts.

Barnett got the Isle of Man off to a quick start with 24 off 18 balls with some excellent drives. Cleator batted excellently, punishing anything short and playing with some real power on her way to making a fantastic 36 (31 balls).

Thorpe 20 (15 balls) and Perry 14 not out finished the innings off y to push the Isle of Man to 132-7.

In reply though, Spain 121-3 won on the Duckworth Lewis method by 13 runs because of bad light

The three wickets were shared by Barnett 1-7, Thorpe 1-22 and Corkish 1-15, but a partnership by the Spanish left and right-handers took the game away from the Manx team.

A really close contest with lots of positives to be taken from the game.

The third game saw the Isle of Man side take on the Italian national team and again captain Crowe won the toss and chose to bat. A fantastic innings from player of the match Barnett held the Manx batting performance together to finish on 102 for eight.

Barnett made 64 and was out in the final over, the innings was made up of a number of glorious drives through the infield and over the top alongside some very positive running. But a very disciplined display from the Italian bowlers made it very difficult for the Manx batters to push on to a big score.

In reply, a much improved display in the field and some tight bowling led by Thorpe 2-10 made the Italian batters work hard for their runs. The other wicket takers were Murphy and Hicks but in the end Italy reached 105-4 from 14.4 overs to claim victory.

Unfortunately the Isle of Man’s final game against Sweden proved to be a difficult contest, with the side ranked 30th in the world dominating proceedings.

The Manx side lost Barnett in the very first over and her team-mates quickly following, resulting in them being dismissed for only 27 runs, with player of the match Gunjan Shukla picking up five wickets for just seven runs.

Sweden were quickly into their stride in their response and, helped by Kanchan Rana scoring 14 off 15 balls before being run out by Crowe, they reached 28 for 2 in four and a half overs to claim victory.