The team was made up of mostly U15's and a few U13's because many of them were away on Holiday.
U13's - Ben Thompson, Mitchell McLeod, Frank Farrington, Finley Munroe and Anthony Ayres.
U15's - Harrison Morris, Nathan Hubble (WK), Connor "Killer" Barnes, Sonny Downes and few other blokes whose names I don't know.
Weather looked okay, a little cloudy 20 degree, got cloudier with the threat of rain and much colder once the sun set. We batted first and did really well with Sonny, Frank and Harrison Morris making big contributions to the final score. This team (SLH) was made up of several of the U13's that played in the narky match on Thursday over at Stanford, but today they were somewhat subdued in comparison. Using the same tactics as they used last week we batted first, meaning they'd have to bat in rapidly failing light. There were some good contributions from the batsmen - Sonny Downes 29, Hubble 19, Harrison Morris 28 and Frank Farrington (Wrist Spinner) 19, and this was with a damp outfield and the ball visibly slowing down. Frank was particularly good exploiting a gap at fine leg with some deft batting. The innings finished with the B&P boys setting a total of 125 off of the 20 overs. Their fielders had a total of 16 extras, so a decent score with which to give our bowlers a chance.
The bowlers got off to a good start against a couple of confident looking batsmen, the opening bowlers were Harrison Morris and a new bloke Alfie Cobden, both bowled really well, especially the new lad Cobden, who came away with 4-1-6-3 he had a stuttering run up, but when he got to the crease an incredibly fast arm action which resulted in very fast bowling. The others....
Harrison Morris - 4-0-13-1
Ben Thompson (My son) - 4-0-13-2
Mitchell McLeod - 2-0-7-1
Frank Farrington - 2-0-7-1
The official data is here - Scores and I'll try and photograph the scorebook and upload that later today.
Bens bowling
After the match I got a text from Neil (Umpire and coach) saying that Ben's bowling in the match was superb and that it was the best he'd seen him bowl, which Ben was pleased to hear. He said of his bowling "I went in without any intentions, whereas normally I go in thinking I'm going to bowl really fast, I didn't put myself under any pressure I just ran in really relaxed and bowled with no thoughts of losing or winning the match because of my bowling and it just came out really well". Maybe this has something to do with the fact that it's the U15's and it's not his team? Who knows, but I agree with Neil he bowled superbly and looked as though he was bowling really well from the edge of the pitch - really relaxed and fluid and as a result it was also quite fast - but effortless fast.
Anthony Ayres catch
In these matches there's never enough committment in the field from my personal point of view, only one catch went down in this match as I recall, but it's the levels of fitness and intensity that always dismays me and the lack of enthusiasm for fielding overall. It's not the trainers fault, I've seen G-Man trying to enthuse these lads and most of them watch cricket and know how pro players field and how quickly the get the ball, gather it and get it back to the keeper. But saying that there was the ocassional glimpses of promise Anthony Ayres was exceptionally good and getting the ball in accurately over the stumps once he'd got to the ball and he took an brilliant catch over his shoulder at the end of the game which was very impressive. The new lad had a longish run in to take Franks wicket, but overall with regards the fielding the SLH lads were leagues ahead.
