Closely fought match - U15 Bentley v Chelmsford on 14th Oct 18

Match report for Essex Indoor League U15 Bentley v Chelmsford on 14th Oct. Closely fought match, Chelmsford won with 1 wicket and 1 ball to spare.

Bentley U15 started their Essex indoor league competition campaign with a strong overall performance in a thriller that went down to the penultimate ball.

Bentley won the toss and elected to bat first, getting off to a steady start reaching 38 off their first 5 overs with opener Eddie Lygoe playing a good assured innings to reach 26 but wickets were falling around him regularly as Bentley were also 3 down at the half way mark (5 overs).

As was required for the team at that stage in the match, the lower order then contributed significantly and took Bentley to a very competitive score of 106 off their 10 overs with Eesa Faheem top scoring with a quickfire 28 not out and Luca Mills with a solid 26 not out.

In reply, Chelmsford also started steadily with Bentley's bowlers keeping their bowling fairly tight and at the half way mark Chelmsford were 40 off their first 5 overs with Amar Patel being the pick of the Bentley Bowlers. The match seemed to be in the balance and there for the taking by either side.

Unfortunately, the middle overs did not go as planned and Chelmsford managed to find some big overs which seem to take the game away from Bentley. There were a couple of fantastic direct throw run outs to mention in 8th and 9th overs (by Luca Mills and Eesa Faheem respectively), which brought Bentley right back in to the contest with 9 runs required off the final over to win and only one wicket in hand.

Chelmsford's not out retired opening batter was back at the crease, who managed to steer Chelmsford home with one ball to spare and finish on 36 not out in a nail biting finish.

To summarise, with this being the first match of the indoor campaign, it was a solid all round team performance with bat, ball and especially fielding which was exemplary at times.

The teams next match is on the 4th of November 2018 v Hutton CC and Bentley u15s are confident of building on this performance and going that one step further by getting their first win on the board.

________________

Match Report by F Zacharia (U15 team manager).