The U9’s played out 2 more games in the last week, with one narrow defeat and a comfortable victory.
On Thursday 4th July they travelled to Wendover for their first experience on an artificial pitch, which had more bounce than they were used to and a big boundary. An excellent all round batting performance took us to a competitive 271. James C, Zach, Kai and Jimmy were the heaviest scorers but it was truly a team effort with all batters contributing and it was in particular great to see the improvement in their running between the wickets.
In the field we bowled tidily but didn’t manage to take many wickets and the Wendover score steadily crept up, aided by some aggressive running between the wickets which we struggled to prevent – including an all run 5 – which was definitely a learning moment! However, with the last pair to bat and bowl, Wendover were just 4 runs behind. Some valiant bowling from Zach and Jimmy at the end bought us close but it was not quite enough as we lost by 7 runs. An excellent effort and in fact we scored 10 more runs than the opposition but only managed to take 2 wickets to their 5 – something for us to focus on moving forward. Player of the match was awarded to James C for some excellent batting, especially in adapting to the extra bounce and some very tidy bowling.
The team then took to the field again on Sunday 7th July with another away fixture at Warborough & Shillingford. A strong batting effort took us to a net score of 321 with some lusty blows in particular from Rory, Zach, James C and James W. However the team definitely saved their best for the field as a superb bowling and fielding effort resulted in a 100 run victory. Zach, Max, Joah and James C all bowled well and Zach took a lovely catch, but the most notable performances came from some of the younger players who have showed so much improvement. Max W took 3 wickets and an excellent catch, Oliver and Jack bowled beautifully and Rory took a superb low catch and was also unlucky not to get more than his 1 wicket and was therefore awarded the player of the match award.
Written by Andy Hobbs
