U9As win top of the table clash

We traveled to Ballinger with both teams having won their first 4 games. Winner takes all - kind of !

When we arrived they were bowling quickly in the nets and some of our team looked abit intimidated. We lost lost toss and were asked to bat.

Freddie and Adam moved score onto 211 loosing only one wicket. Jake and Rohan scored good runs including a lovely 4 from Jake but lost 3 wickets to finish on 212. Alfie, with a great 4 off his last ball, and Matthew played well and moved us to 219. Jayan and Mattais batted sensibly to progress to 225, with Mattais unlucky to get out twice edging cuts - the keeper taking two good catches. Our last pair needed to score a few to get us to a competitive total and did they deliver ! Monty hit an exceptional 24 with four 4s and he and Ed ran very well between the wickets. Crucially we didn't lose a wicket in the last 6 overs. We finished on 267 loosing 8 wickets.

Ballinger reply started well with 12 runs in the first 2 overs. We then took 3 wickets in Adams 3rd over to reduce them to 197. We bowled well for next few overs but Balinger's talented batsmen continued to accumulate runs. We continued to bowl well and took a few more wickets but after 14 overs they had 246 and looked favorites. ( We had 217 at same point). Alfie and Freddie bowled tidily reduced this to 244 after 16 overs, taking a wicket each. Monty and Rohan bowled the last 4 overs. Monty was steady going for 5 off each but Rohan with a exceptional two overs took 5 wickets including a 3 wicket (if you include a runout ) maiden. This left Ballinger on 232 for 13 wickets and gave us a 35 run victory. It was much closer than score suggests.

I am glad we dont have to choose a man of the match as separating Monty's batting, Rohans Bowling and Ed's Wicketkeeping (including a rare stumping) would require a Sky analyst. All were exceptional.

More pleasing however were the 7 runouts we secured. The fielding was everything we asked for attentive, throwing hard where we had a chance of a runout and getting ball back quickly to keeper. Well done to all . Well done on batting front were everyone contributed and moved the total on. Great team performance.

Thanks to Shaun for umpiring and parents for their support.

Top of the table

Stuart