U13's Start League Campaign With Defeat

With a small squad this season the U13's began their League season with a visit to Soar Valley Strollers.

Confidence in the team was high despite only having 10 men with the cup Q/F victory the previous week.

Winning the toss skipper Matt North asked Soar Valley to bat first. Soar Valley got off to a good start despite some good tight bowling but finally Finn got the first breakthrough as he ran out the number 2 batsman with the score on 43.

The following over saw the other opener retire on 25. After another small partnership though Thrumpton got another wicket as the number 4 was run out by Matt North with the score on 68.

Following that wicket Thrumpton then picked up regular wickets with Ben Gill being the pick of the bowlers taking 3 for 14 from 4 overs.

Finn Manners and Lewis Wales also picked up wickets but unfortunately the total amount of bowling extras, 42 in total, meant that Soar Valley set a very challenging total of 99 for 7 from their 20 overs.

With the three figure total of 100 needed to win Lewis Wales and Matt North headed out to open the innings but with the score on 11 the skipper was out for just 1.

Finn was in next but having put 20 on with Lewis he was out for 4.

At the other end Lewis Wales has been blazing away and retired not out having reached 25.

Following Lewis's retirement we then saw a flurry of wickets with none of the batsman reaching double figures.

Luckily for the Badgers however Soar Valley started to struggle with bowling wides themselves that kept Thrumpton in with a change and eventually Lewis came back in.

Thrumpton needed 20 off the last over and despite Lewis smashing the first ball out of the park for 6 it proved too much as he was run out for a well played 39 just 2 balls later,

Thrumpton were all out for 91 with 2 balls remaining, so close yet so far.

One thing to be very proud of however was the fielding as this was superb and if we can cut down the bowling extras it won't be long before we start picking up the wins!