U13 Boys Indoor Cricket v TSA

On Friday 27 January the year 7 & 8 boys faced tough competition in the form of Thompsons Sports Cricket Academy. This is a collection of boys who mostly attend private schools such as BGS. This friendly game was the first of a three match series that will involve a whole range of boys with varying cricket experience and is a great opportunity to learn more about the indoor game.

The games don’t started until 5pm so after school is a perfect opportunity for all of the boys to practice their skills before putting them into practice. To help them out 4 older boys also kindly volunteered to help with the practice match and proper match. Caolan Pearce, George Harris, Tom Green and Danny Conway are all fantastic cricketing role models for the boys and were brilliant help on the night. They did everything from organising the boys during the practice session to umpiring and scoring the actual match – I really appreciate their efforts!

In the match SK were tasked with setting the total and sent out openers Ollie Stratton and Louie Dun to get things started. In typical fashion Ollie wasted no time and went hard at the ball right from the start. Louie was a little more conservative and the two combined well to get the ball rolling. The pair were 15 from their first 2 overs before Louie found a leading edge which was caught by a TSA fielder. Toby Rice came in at 3 and pushed the score on brilliantly looking to score those valuable 3s with every single ball. Toby took on a quick single and was unlucky to be narrowly run out just short of his ground – he must have been extremely close but nonetheless he continued to encourage and guide the boys from the side. Maxwell kept the scoring rate going when he came in and the boys found themselves 40-2 off of the first 4 overs! The scoring rate was excellent and with only 2 down they were on course to target 100!

Shortly afterwards Ollie retired in impressive style on the maximum of 20. Retirement comes at 15 with the last scoring shot counting towards the total so Ollie waited until he was on 14 before finding a maximum to go out with a bang. At the half way point the boys were 49-3 and still on course for triple figures. Unfortunately a few wickets and some sharp bowling severely halted the run rate and the boys were only able to make 14 runs from their last 30 balls. The TSA bowling was excellent in this period and right on the money making it difficult to get away for runs. SK finished on 63.

TSA set about their run chase in positive fashion but not before skipper Toby Rice nabbed a wicket in his over having conceded just 5 runs. If the other boys could replicate his economy then they would be home and dry. TSA had plenty of strength in depth though and an impressive batting display saw them cruise to victory. They were able to maintain a really good scoring rate throughout their innings and finished on an impressive 89 from their 10 overs. In and amongst that there were some great performances with the ball from SK. Wickets came in the Dun, Quinn and M Williams overs and there was some fantastic fielding from boys who engineered several run out opportunities. It was little surprise that Louie struck again with the ball – he is proving quite a threat in the field if he has the ball in hand and any batsmen find themselves out of their ground!

Without a doubt the best part of this competition was watching the boys improve as they learn more about indoor cricket. There are a lot of boys in this group who have very little, if any, cricket experience and it is great to be able to play against and with boys who they can learn from. There will be opportunities for lots more boys in the coming weeks and I am looking forward to watching the group go from strength to strength. This group of boys did phenomenally well considering they were up against boys who play lots of cricket in some fantastic facilities.

Special thanks to the TSA boys for travelling over to us for the first of three friendly matches!

Well done to everyone involved.

Mr Cook