Under 15s pushing for Semi-Final place

Under 15s Manager Adam Cooke had penned us a review of the season so far…in short a victory in the final group match agains Maori Oxshott could result in a place in the semi-finals of the West Surrey Youth League Under 15 competition:

Link to Table : http://westsycl.play-cricket.com/leaguetables/divisionTable.asp?id=10052167&seasonID=23

Link to Results : http://sdacc.play-cricket.com/scoreboard/results.asp?seasonID=23&fromForm=1&quickSearch=season23&startDay=&startMonth=&startYear=&endDay=&endMonth=&endYear=&type=&team=10050181

Match Summaries:

Woking & Horsell (Away) – Won by by 9 runs
Michael and James opened the innings up with James mis-timing a drive in the first over giving Woking an early breakthrough, which bought Ryan to the crease. Michael took the attack to the bowlers with some powerful strokes, but fell to a highly debatable LBW decision. James C joined Ryan and the pair kept the scoreboard ticking over until Ryan was out LBW off some accurate bowling. Ed was in at no.5, watching James and Ed bat was a real pleasure as the pair put on a solid eighty run partnership before both were caught on 41 and 42 respectively. Fraser and James D were at the crease until Fraser got bowled by a ball staying low. Woking’s openers were bought back on to try and restrict the ever-growing total but couldn’t halt James as he smashed a quick 21, but they managed to pick up Ben’s wicket.

Fraser and Matt opened up the bowling with some well disciplined stuff but couldn’t get the breakthrough we wanted, at least not yet. Their openers looked set on getting them close to the total as they were comfortable playing our bowlers. Matt took over with James D at the other end, it wasn’t until James’ first over that wickets would fall; bizarrely it was from consecutive runouts, Fraser claiming both victims! In the following over Matt bowled their no.4 which bought their best batsman to the crease. A worrying period followed which was broken when James bowled their no. 3 and another run out occured off James C”s bowling, however their no.5 hit a well earned 51*, thankfully he retired and this slowed their scoring.

Claygate (Home) – Won by by 68 runs
Michael D and Dan opened up with very impressive shots that got us off to a flying start, fours were flying everywhere including some very textbook style drives and powerful thwacks. A 53 run partnership is the perfect way to start any innings, unfortunantly Michael’s thwacks left his stumps exposed and got bowled. The skipper came in next and played a sublime innings of 35 which saw six fours and one six. Three wickets of James, Ed and Harry fell in quick succession, this took us from 110-1 to 129-4. Fraser joined Dan at the crease and played his usual big shots, smashing 28 off about 15 balls! The last over began with Dan needing three or four runs to get his maiden 50 but with Fraser on strike! Fraser played a noble role in trying to get Dan on strike to get the runs he needed and succeeded with Dan calmly hitting a four off the final ball to finish the innings off and get his 50! Very well deserved.

The formidable opening attack of Jamie and Dom was far too much for Claygates batsman, fantastic bowling from both boys saw them stumble to 5-2, it should have been more but fortuitous bounce saw both boys miss the stumps. Some good bowling from Matt saw another two wickets tumble as they collapsed to 39-4. Their no. 4 and no.5 batsman resisted but eventually fell to Fraser and Dom respectively, this saw Claygate fall from 93-4 to 99-6 and after even more accurate bowling from Fraser and some fine fielding by Michael and Dom the visitors ended on 106 all out.

Dorking (Home) – Won by 7 wickets
Dorking were comfortably beaten thanks to some very tight bowling from Jamie, Fraser, Matt and Bobby Cave, (a fourteen year old left arm spinner from Barbados who unfortunantly has returned home.) This was accompanied with some handy batting from Michael D and James C, getting 30 and 33* respectively.

Horsley & Send (Home) – Won by 2 wickets
Horsley & Send were a difficult team, they are the main competition for the league title and showed us how strong they are however Stoke were too strong and got a close victory – shame Capello’s men couldn’t have done the same! H&S batted first and posted a score of 113 all out; pick of the bowlers were James D and Dom who took 3-16 and 2-23 respectively. The best ball that I have seen bowled though was by Jimmy, middle stump yorker perfectly bowled a useful tool for every bowler. The batting was a close affair with 10 runs needed off of the last over with Hugo and Harry at the crease. Harry hit 1 off the first ball, the rest of the boys at this point were yelling for boundaries to be hit, Hugo didn’t disappoint. Consecutive 4s relieved the pressure off the batting side and of all the supporters blood pressure, not to mention mine. Three balls to go with 1 run needed. Hugo tried to do the same again but was caught at mid-off which allowed Harry to be on strike, two balls remaining. In typical Harry style the obvious option isn’t the best one, so, instead of running a quick single he decides to hit a huge 6 to end the innings and a great match in style.

Merrow (Away) – Lost by 21 runs
Then there was Merrow…they are the banana skin on which this age group always slips up on. The extras were very low this time which highlights the improvements our bowling attack are making every week. Accurate bowling from Jamie, James and Dan restricted Merrow to 121-7, with Dan having a hat-trick ball next time he bowls. However, after 10 overs Merrow were about 45-0, which at this standard is amazing, this is where the problems rose. The boys got complacent, quiet in the field and heads dropped, before they knew it Merrow blasted 80 runs off the last 10 overs. Similar story in the batting, we started off really well getting ahead off the run rate and having wickets in hand. However complancency kicked in and the run rate slowed and wickets fell as a result which meant we were ended up 14 runs short, an improvement on last year but frustrating for the boys.

Walton-on-Thames (Home) – Won by 38 runs
James won the toss and elected to bat first on a dry Stoke wicket. Michael D and James C opened the batting and got us off to a flying start 23-0 off two overs! Each opening bowler only lasted one over before being taken off. Michael fell in the 5th over with the score at 36-1, James T joined James C at the crease and put on an 81 run partnership. Both boys played intelligent cricket hitting boundaries and singles, keeping the scoreboard ticking over at a healthy 7.5 an over, however James T was bowled in the 15th over. James D joined James C at the crease before James C retired on 50*. Some big hitting from Hugo and Harry carried the score to 170-7. Dorking put up a mild fight but couldn’t score the necessary runs and consequently fell 38 runs short, finishing on 132-5, the bowlers for the most part were quite good, however 23 extras are too many gifts for the opposition!

SDCC adds – Having watched the end of the Walton match prior to the Trust League game against Spencer; what isn’t captured above but is worthy of mention the high standard of the fielding on the traditionally uneven Stoke outfield, particularly from the boundary runners, the bounce made even more unpredicatble by the hard ground, dusty in some areas, lush in others. Well done, boys! If you can emulate the 1st XI and 2nd XI results over Maori Oxshott, (see the Play Cricket site results section for the matches played on the 5th June), there is every chance of progress!