BACKReport by Fingers
Thursday 11th August and this is a significant date for Theale and Tilehurst Cricket Club as we play our first ever u11 fixture.
We are the visitors at Mortimer West End and after some initial confusion over the date of the game we get underway with MWE batting first (thanks to Tom for getting everything organised at such short notice). One of the MWE openers, Ryan, looks a good player and manages to play some good aggressive strokes (including a couple of fours and a six) but at the other end it is the T&T bowlers that are in control. Considering that many of them are playing their first ever game of proper hard ball cricket they don’t look too bad, all that practice seems to be paying off.
James Osborn took a couple of wickets in his two overs and Matt Emmett took 1-0 in his two overs having shown good intelligence and ignored everything his father has told him. In a sixteen over game the MWE innings closes on 66 with virtually all the T&T players having had the opportunity to bowl and James White having done very well behind the stumps.
Jordan Manning and Connor Haylock opened the batting for T&T and Jordan got the innings off to a flying start, the first two balls were hit for four and the third was a five thanks to a four overthrows. Connor was able to keep him company until the first wicket went at 21; Jordan though continued on his way until he retired on 26 not out.
At the practice session on Wednesday night we were trying to encourage the players to trust each other’s call and that if you responded quickly you would normally be fine, the only exception would be if someone had a reputation for being a bad runner. It seems that one of our youngsters is keen to build such a reputation for himself and become the new Osman but on this occasion Joe ended up running himself out. He did though manage to turn and give his partner a look after being run out although they were completely blame free.
Chelsea and Harry looked like they were going to see T&T home but Harry was bowled for a well compiled 20 and it was left to James White to come in and hit the winning runs.
Thanks go to MWE for hosting the game and we all had so much fun that we’re going to do it all over again next week.