Bartestree U15 v Luctonians U15

Elliot won the toss and put Luctonians into bat. The start was slightly delayed due to rain, but the weather soon brightened up and Ethan and Noah opened the bowling. Ethan bowled a typically frugal spell, finishing with a very tidy 1-12 off his 4 overs. Noah also bowled really well in tandem, taking 3 wickets from his first 3 overs with some good, accurate swing bowling. The change bowlers then came in and kept up the excellent standard set – Charlie (0-11 off 3) and Dom (0-5 off 2) restricting the runs, whilst Will (2-11 off 3) and Gauranga (2-8 off 2) were effective and picked up 2 wickets each whilst also stemming the flow of runs. Noah then came back on to bowl the last of his 4 over allocation, and managed to take 2 more wickets with his final 2 balls – he is on a hat-trick next game. This gave him excellent figures of 5-22 off 4 overs, his first 5-fer and also the team’s first for the season. Great effort.

Our ground fielding was also much better this week – generally alert in the field, backing up, no mis-fields – and even managing to take all of the catches that came our way. Definite improvement in this area throughout the season.

So 80 runs needed to win – very gettable, but on a variable pitch with the light getting darker, not an easy chase.

Ethan opened up with Will, and after a steady couple of overs Ethan was out caught on the drive, bringing Elliot to the crease. Elliot and Will consolidated against a good bowling attack, moving to 13-1 off the first 5 overs, then 21-1 off 8. Having seen off the opening bowlers they increased the scoring rate, initially to 32-1 off 10 and then up to 40-1 in the 11th over, pacing the chase well. However, at that point Elliot was bowled out for 7. Avi joined Will at the crease and some good running between the wickets saw us continue at the required run rate until Avi was also bowled out, leaving us at 53-3 off 14 and needing 27 runs to win off the last 6 overs. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals as we inched towards the target – Charlie, Ewan, Dom and Noah all came and went, leaving us at 70-7 off 18 overs and needing 10 to win off the last 2. However, in failing light it was becoming harder to play the shots needed and the 19th over went for just 2 runs, shortly followed by Will being bowled out for 17 at the start of the 20th over and the game was all but gone. Rufus was bowled and Gauranga run out in the last over trying to get us over the line, and we finished on 73 all out to lose by just 6 runs.

Disappointing not to win from the position we were in, but lots of positives to take, in particular an excellent bowling performance and vastly improved effort in the field. Just one more league game to go now, pending confirmation from Dales that we are able to reschedule it for the third time. We'll also try and get a friendly or two organised before the end of the season.

Thanks to all parents for tea contributions; to Sarah, Gary and Pete for help with teas & clearing up; and to Richard for scoring.