Match report – BCC U11B v Chalfont St Giles

On a beautiful sunny evening at BCC pitch 3 we enjoyed the U11B team’s first game of the season on Monday night. Jasper won the toss and decided to bat first. Laurie and Lui opened the batting and against some accurate bowling they moved the score along nicely in their 4 overs, to 215 from the starting point of 200. The 2nd pairing of Oscar and Max saw some good hitting, coupled with some keen fielding resulting in a couple of run outs. Tommy and Ben were the third pair in, Tommy straight from the tennis court was seeing the ball well and hit some lusty blows. The score was moving on well. Freddie continued this attacking batting in the next pair and Fred improved with every ball after a tricky start against accurate bowling again. Jasper and Jamie were our last pair in, and they managed to progress the score on to a very respectable 256 in our 20 overs. Well done to Freddie for managing the batting captaincy role.
At the half time break (after crisp, chocolate and biscuit refreshments!) I asked the team what would they do differently next time. What I heard was great. They wanted to be more attacking, but defend the straight ones, to call better and score more runs. We will continue to remind them of this for next games!
When it was our turn to bowl I was slightly worried that we had overdone the amount of food the boys had eaten, but I shouldn’t have worried as they went about their jobs very well. Oscar and Freddie’s opening 4 overs got us off to a great start, indeed Freddie’s leg spin turned out to be unplayable as the batters couldn’t get bat on ball at all. Max and Fred followed up and I was really pleased to see both of them rewarded with a wicket each as they kept a very good line. Jamie and Lui were next up, I think Lui feeling the pressure of following his brother on to bowl stood up to his task well and both of them bowled well. With 12 overs gone Chalfont St Giles were on 224, so whilst behind the run rate a bit still well within touching distance. Tommy and Laurie did a great job in pegging the run chase back, with 4 wickets in the next 4 overs. This made it very difficult for Chalfont to mount a last 4 over chase, especially so when Freddie came back on to take 2 well deserved wickets in 2 balls. Ben also chipped in at the other end with 2 clean bowls to leave Chalfont ending on 194 and a BCC win by 62 runs.
The boys should be very proud of themselves. I know they love to win all their matches, but for me it is watching the improvement in their sportsmanship, teamwork and general cricket skills that is great to see. Plenty of things to work on still, the boys were spot on with their assessment of the batting, but their performance in the field was excellent for a first match of the season. Well done.
Martin