Our u13bs arrived at a breezy Easton ground hoping to pull off a shock against Easton A in the cup and for much of the game it looked on the cards.

Easton won the toss and elected to bat with Ollie Knight opening the bowling and getting a wicket with his first ball. Ollie continued to bowl a tight line, as well as picking up another wicket, along with Sam Redhead at the other end restricting Easton's run scoring. First change of Harvey Cross and Freddie continued to keep things fairly tight though the Easton batsmen began to find their range with some lusty blows. The good bowling carried on with Arthur Bentley and Raffi, who both picked a wicket, but Easton were able to build towards a competitive total. Easton finished on 142 from their 20 overs. We were definitely in the game!

Our openers Raffi and Freddie set off at a blistering rate, especially Freddie who smashed 2 sixes on his way to retiring quickly and with some ease - a great innings and just what we needed. We then had 2 unfortunate run outs, with Sam and Harvey both departing without troubling the scorers and things began to look much more difficult. Raffi got the final few runs he needed before retiring to complete a lovely innings. Charlie Smith and Arthur tried to pick things up before Arthur was run out in a bit of a mix up bringing Oscar Penzer to the wicket. Charlie and Oscar batted with some great grit and determination to bring the score over 100 and edging towards the total. Charlie was eventually out for 20 and Oscar ended up 11no. They should both feel really proud of themselves for the way the stuck in and kept us in the game.

Unfortunately though it wasn't to be today and we fell short by 16 in the end. 4 run outs in a game will always make life difficult, however, I am really proud of the way the boys applied themselves and kept the win a possibility for so long. They should all feel proud of themselves.

Plenty of positives to take from the game, in particular our good straight, full bowling that really helped restrict their batsmen early on. Our confident opening partnership hitting the bad balls for a boundary and rotating the strike really shook the Easton players. And it was good to see great determination from our lower order batters!

Well done all!

(Right, let's plan a running between the wickets drill for practice tomorrow night............!)

Guy