U13s Get Back to Winning Ways

We probably went into last night’s game against top of the table Weybridge Purple a little low on confidence. Therefore, the message was to go out and play to your best ability and enjoy the game, with a decent performance in mind rather than a positive result. Bowling first, we produced a very disciplined attack with the trio of Sam Partridge, Raymond Wing and Joshua Spencer all going for 7 or less an over, and overall we only bowled 6 wides. Weybridge had great intent with the bat and the ever dangerous Henry Francis struck 3 fours in his 23 before being run out by Max Durrant in a mix up. The only other wicket than that was a feint edge behind to Samuel Spencer off Joshua’s bowling, but Weybridge were too often looking for the big hit rather than accumulating singles. Both Raymond and Sam P patrolled the rear boundary with some excellent stops, and overall we looked very sharp in the field, especially backing up the throw. Some economical final overs meant that Weybridge were unable to accelerate as they would have wanted to, and scored 103-2 off their 12 overs.

The target was not insurmountable, but the boys knew that some clever running would be important. Raymond and Sam P went out to bat with high expectations, and they approached the early overs with some caution. However, quite unexpectedly, Weybridge’s main bowlers just lost their line and bowled a succession of wides. We seized on this gift and built a nice stand of 61 before Sam was caught sharply at short cover. Raymond then launched his attack with two 6s’ in one over to retire on 25. There was a slight wobble with Joshua’s early run out, but Max Durrant and Sam Cobb played sensibly to get things back on track. They did survive a few run out scares, but still Weybridge could not keep the ball on the mat with enough regularity, and as the target became smaller, Max decided to strike a lovely 6 to seal the match at the end of the 11^th over.

We still have never been beaten by our main rivals, Weybridge, and this result has made the battle for the title more interesting with T20 now top on 16 points and us and Weybridge tied in 2^nd on 14.

Darren Wing