Effingham U12s win in nervy finish

The U12s great season continued with a win over Epsom on Sunday morning, although their chase of a modest total was not quite that straight forward. Epsom batted first and carefully saw off some excellent opening bowling from Sam Partridge and Thomas Stratten. They were also backed up well by Jake Raffaelli and Lucas Townend, and although no wickets fell, it was evident that the pressure of not being able to score fluidly was building on Epsom. It was the introduction of Sam Cobb and Raymond Wing that brought about a flurry of wickets. Sam took the first, and then the very next ball, Sam Partridge threw down a direct hit at the stumps to claim a superb run out. The latter took a sharp catch off Raymond, and then Isaac Keay combined with Raymond to claim another run out. Epsom thereafter limped along, losing wickets to Freddie Perrin (his first for the club) and Isaac. Ciaran Jarvis grabbed a brace in 2 balls, before another run out signalled the end of Epsom’s innings for 90 after 18.4 overs. This was the first time Effingham had fully dismissed a side in league cricket.

Effingham’s innings started with some luck. First ball, Jake was dropped from an edge behind to a very frustrated wicket-keeper, and looked out of sorts for a few overs against some accurate bowling. The uneven bounce affected both teams in this game and if Epsom had taken their chances with catches, the result could have been different. However, once Jake was established, he became unplayable and raced to a very important retirement with 33 runs. Ciaran, Sam C, Raymond and Ollie Nicholl all played their part, but were not able to make their stays at the wicket a lasting one. With the pressure starting to build and the runs drying up, Lucas and Sam P knew they had to stay together and build a partnership. They set run targets each over and worked well together to achieve this putting on 27 extremely vital runs together. Unfortunately, Lucas was caught for 15 near the end, but Sam P struck a four immediately afterwards and took Effingham to victory at the end of the 18^th over.

Effingham’s victory was again down to a great all-round team performance with vital contributions being made by all players. It was evident in the field that they squeezed the opposition batsmen by applying pressure to force them into mistakes. And also with the batting, the strength in depth counted and took the team over the line.

Darren Wing