U8s. V u9 friendly

At 4pm it looked like we had lucked out with early May weather, by our start time of 6.30pm it felt more like November! Undeterred Hector and Archie tossed the coin, which u9s won and decided to bat.

The first pair of Tom B and Tom E started steadily, taking singles where they could but also losing a couple of wickets as well. The u8s bowling was proving tricky to get away! Archie and Max then came in and where they could knocked it around with max hitting one smashing four. Harvey and Ollie then took it on, with the sun causing issues as it briefly made an appearance Harvey needed to squint to see the ball! With the score on 226 after 12 overs (we start at 200) the u9s needed some extra omph to get the scoreboard moving. Thomas e did this hitting 4 fours and a six in a very accomplished 23, batting with Dylan the pair put 26 to take the score to 252. It was then left to krish and Kingsley to bat the last 4 overs as we reached 259 with Irish hitting the last ball through the covers for 4.

With the u8s starting on 225 we knew we had to bowl and field well to keep them in check. I must mention that Archie 's motivational and leadership skills in the field were brilliant.supportive of his team and so keen to praise others he led by example. The entire team supported each other and congratulated each other which was a real highlight. Our bowling unit was pretty strong, and proved difficult for the u8s to get away. We took 8 wickets through the innings, including catches, run outs and bowled. The u8s had a chance at 230 with 4 overs to go but strong bowling at the end saw us home.

We still have work to do, we bowled 15 wides, which is 30 runs we gave away, and we dropped a couple of catches, and the batting at times looked like we had never practiced a front shot at all! But none of that really matters when you you are freezing your cricket balls off but still can't help smiling and laughing at the enjoyment they all got from playing a match. God knows what the are going to be like in a league match!

Thanks to steve for scoring, guy for ensuring boys behaved themselves when waiting to bat and parents for supporting, most importantly thanks to Viki and u8s for challenging us!

Martin