Burgess Hill u12s 91-3 beat Poynings u12s 82-3 by 9 runs.
Eventually our season started on a lovely evening at St John’s and our lads got off to an excellent performance with a sound victory over a decent Poynings team who we’ve had an ebb and flow rivalry with over recent years.
Playing a 16 over game, the visitors won the toss and chose to field. Taking on our first out-is-out game, Toby Spooner and Conor Ward started studiously and intelligently as they gave us a solid platform. Toby was the more aggressive early on, and used his favourite pull shot to great effect for two boundaries, before eventually getting out lbw for 17, with the team score on 43 in the 8th over. Tom Broughton sadly came and went quickly, bowled for zero, and Billy Fuller came in to join Conor who had been starved of the strike in the early stages, however was rotating the strike well. Once Billy joined him, Conor started to spread his wings, and was particularly hitting well down the ground in the V, hitting four boundaries before eventually retiring on 26. Billy looked really good for 9 but was then bowled; and the final few balls were faced by our later reserves Glen MacDougall (1 not out) and George Kaye who turned up with his whites just in case, and looked totally confident in his 6 not out.
Aided by a number of wides and byes, our total was a very defendable 91-3.
The reply from Poynings was strangled really on by some excellent bowling. In fact, Radley Larder took a wicket in the first over of his club u12s debut, and Jack MacDonald was miserly and accurate from the other end. Aaron Goldsmith showed his continued improvement as a player as he bowled 2 excellent overs, with a wicket after some smart stumping by stand-in wicket-keeper Toby. The pace of Billy and of Louis were both extremely dangerous and boundaries were starved apart from a couple of excellent pulls by their star batter Freddie who retired on 25. Louis got a deserved wicket to get them 3 down, and Benji Turner was turning the ball with flight and at times the batsmen didn’t know what to do. Their captain and probably best player Bertie, came it at 5, and tried to pick up the pace as the target started to drift away from them. Boundaries came off Conor and Tom, but when captain Conor asked Jack to come back on to bowl the penultimate over he delivered with a remarkable over that went for only 2 runs to a pair of excellent batsmen. Radley returned to bowl the last, and whilst a couple of wilder balls slipped out, the core of the over was too good for the batsmen, who could do little more than singles and twos, and we won by 9 runs.
All round, it was a terrific performance; from the excellent batting from Conor and Toby at the start of the evening, to the phenomenal bowling attack we have assembled and developed, that has pace and potency that this opposition at least, could not compete with. Tough match next week at Preston Nomads, but the lads with go with confidence.
Scorecard: http://burgesshill.play-cricket.com/website/results/3616107