Archived Match Report

Under 13 XI vs. Ross-on-Wye - 08 Jul - Better than Brazil!

The Under 13s turned out yesterday evening to face Ross on Wye away although in truth the team was heavily augmented with the Under 11 squad since the majority of our Under 13s were over in Germany (who in turn were over in Brazil). Canon Frome won the toss and elected to field first. Sam took a fine catch from Arthur's bowling for our first wicket and then Tom Davies, playing in his first ever competitive hardball match, clean bowled Ross batsman O'Neil who at that stage was sitting pretty with 19 runs. Unfortunately, we had to wait until the last ball of the innings before Arthur took his second, and CFCC's third, wicket. The Canon Frome bowling was reasonably economical from the point of view of extras but the Ross batting was strong with three batsmen making 31, 21 and 19. Thank goodness they didn't run all the quick singles that were also clearly there for the taking. So, Ross on Wye finished on 124 for 3 - a challenging target but not beyond us.
Unfortunately, to challenge a target of 124 you generally need more than 3 batsmen to score runs. With Tom D scoring 17, Sam B scoring 16 and George H scoring 5 (and Extras scoring 60) we gave it a damn good shot and really we weren't that far behind at the end with 98 runs. There is always some bad luck that contributes to unsatisfactory spells at the crease and some of our batsmen were unlucky. However, Canon Frome probably need to bat with a bit more patience and joie de vivre when at the wicket. If the team had gone out to the middle with the intention of defending their wicket, playing themselves in for their first over and then gradually opening up so they could savour their time in the middle then the end result could have been a lot different.
In summary, we could have done better - but we weren't anywhere near as bad as Brazil - which just goes to show how sport can make everyone run the gauntlet at times.
Thank you to all the players, parents, scorers (Eric and Marcus), Phil, Kay and Allen for umpiring.
Andy B