A great win in a tight game

On a bright and sunny Hackney Marshes the U11A faced a strong Stoke Newington team for a place in the division cup final. Playing on a grass wicket that was damp from the rain was always going to result in a match where the bowlers were on top and so it proved.

North Midd batted first with Robbie and Cameron starting carefully to play themselves in against strong bowling. Robbie was bowled in the sixth over by a good ball and Jonah was caught hooking to a ball that held up. Euan came and went to another good ball before Max joined Cameron to steady the innings. Max added 18 and Cameron 29 before Sachin hit 20 to take the total to 94 for 9 from 20 overs.

That we had lost 9 wickets gave us a clue to how the game might be won as scoring was difficult and our bowling is increasingly strong. Stokey got off to a good start to be 20 without loss before a runout removed their best player for 12. In fact we dropped a simple catch and in the confusion Max threw a direct hit that changed the game. In the next over Jonah got the other opener out caught and bowled and the game was back on.

Stokey recovered to be at 72 for 4 in the 14th over and it looked like the game had moved decisively in their favour before the final overs when we managed to slow the run rate and build real pressure. First Sachin, then Robbie and then Tom bowled with great purpose and accuracy to make it almost impossible to score and we fielded really well to restrict the runs.

Robbie bowled 3 overs for 12, Tom 4 for 16 with 1 wicket and Sachin 3 for only 2 runs with 5 wickets along the way to swing the game to a nail biting last over with Stokey needing 6 to win with one wicket left. Jonah came back on for the final over and took an excellent caught and bowled on the second ball to finish the innings with Stokey 5 short of victory.

Man of the match for batting went to Max for the way that he took hold of the innings when early wickets had tumbled. In the field MotM was given to Jonah J for his clean pick ups and accurate delivery to keep the runs down. Overall MotM went to Sachin for an excellent spell of 5 for 2 from 3 overs that got us back in the match.

The final will be against either Hampstead or Brondesbury who play on Monday.