U11s start season with a convincing win

Under glorious Spring sunshine, the u11s started their season with an early start away to Cheltenham - as a part of the club entering the Gloucestershire Youth Cricket League for the first time. As a 'performance' league the format was very different to the more familiar BYCL in which we competed last season; compulsory retirements at 25 runs being replaced with guidance to allow the players the opportunity to bowl longer spells, take 5 wickets and experience scoring 50s & hundreds. Heading into the unknown, nobody could have expected what followed.

Losing the toss and being put into bat on what looked like an early season green top (we would also have bowled first) openers James Hutchings and Ruhi Khanna started cautiously, defending well, nudging singles and putting away the rare bad balls from Cheltenham's County recognised opening bowlers. Their left hand, right hand partnership began to grow, with sharp running putting pressure on the opposition fielders.

As both players grew in confidence, showing a full range of shots including deft dabs down to 3rd man, cover drives and lusty cuts and pulls, James reached his first competitive 50 from 53 balls. This was the cue for a real acceleration with the left hander completing his century in good time - the next 50 runs coming from only 22 balls. At which point he was retired having hit 18 fours and 1 six. The opening partnership of more than 180 had been chanceless.

Shortly afterwards Ruhi moved to his 50 from 73 balls including 4 boundaries and 2 huge, hooked, 6s. With only a few overs remaining Luca Beynon (u10) and Sid Elan picked up where the openers left off. Untroubled, they showed excellent timing and smart running in their 14 not out and 7 not out respectively taking the side to 218/0 off our 30 overs.

Defending an over par total and with a strong bowling unit, expectations were high. However, the Cheltenham openers, Morgan Dawson and Ollie Michael were largely untroubled, repelling our opening bowling pair of Rohan Farnfield and Alex Hutchison and giving only a couple of difficult chances that we were unable to take.

At the 10 over point they were keeping up with the required rate and progressed smoothly. After spells of tight bowling from Elan, Khanna and Beynon, Cheltenham fell well behind the required rate. Nicholas Potts (our second u10 player) induced a bottom edge from Dawson that was smartly snaffled low down behind the stumps by Hutchings, before Khanna executed the smart run out of Cheltenham's no3, throwing down the stumps from midwicket. With some margin created, most players were able to enjoy a bowl, gaining valuable experience in the process and restricting Cheltenham to 185/2 and securing a maiden win.

Our next fixture is away to Golden Hill on Wednesday 28 April in the BYCL opener which will see some rotation of the 25 strong squad.