U14s come 2nd in the Alastair Cook Trophy!

Our U14s competed in the Alastair Cook Trophy Finals Day at Billericay yesterday. All 4 teams that reached the semi finals were genuinely outstanding teams, with the other 3 teams full of Essex county players.

In our Semi Final, we bowled first and got off to a miraculous start! Ben Warren (2) and Thomas Greenhill (1) had them 7-3 after the first 4 overs with all 3 of Harold Wood’s Essex batsmen out! Just as they managed to put on a steady fight back, we pegged them back again with Harry Pigram nicking off their No.5 and Zac Saunders running out their in form batsmen for 31. Ben Foster and Thomas Greenhill took a wicket piece as Harold Wood tried to accelerate at the end. The final wicket went to Jamie Ward, who bowled excellently, with Henry Hawkins completing an expert leg side stumping. They finished 94-9 in their 20 overs.

In response, they showed their class with 3 genuinely rapid bowlers and one excellent spinner. We lost Henry Hawkins who was bowled by a beauty before Ben Foster was trapped LBW, all the while Harry Pigram was batting on a different pitch mixing technical strokeplay and brute force to excellent effect. However we continued to lose wickets at the other end which meant the game was always going to be close. Just as things got tight, Harry opened up even further, hitting their spinner for 15 off one over which effectively won us the game. Despite a late fight back from Harold Wood, we won with 4 balls to spare with Harry reaching an thoroughly deserved 50*!

Unfortunately the final didn’t go as well as we’d hoped, with us playing against comfortably the best opposition we’ve ever seen. South Loughton recently came 3rd in the Nationals at U15 level, which included 8 of the U14s we were playing against, so we knew they were going to be seriously decent. They batted first and reached 174-5 in their 20 overs, which is about 30 more than we’ve ever conceded in a T20 game before. Whilst we didn’t bowl or field our best, they were simply a level above, sometimes you just had to admire the strokeplay. In response we decided we’d rather go down swinging, rather than nurdle it around, and in our attempt to go big we were bowled out for 81.

It’s obviously a shame not to win the competition, however the truth is we’d need to have our best day and we’d need South Loughton to have an off day to have any real chance of winning it.

I’m incredibly proud of the lads for coming 2nd in a competition full of outstanding teams, we were finally able to show how much potential this group of players have!

We also finished the season tonight with a 6 a side competition and an awards ceremony. The awards went to:
A team
Player: Ben Foster (285 runs + 20 wickets)
Batsmen: Henry Hawkins (257 runs)
Bowler: Ben Warren (17 wickets)

B team
Player: Ollie Foot (188 runs + 8 wickets)
Batsmen: Cameron Wach (149 runs)
Bowler: George Howes (10 wickets)

Thanks to all the parents for their support this season, in particular Pete Curtis who has been a massive help running matches where I’ve had clashes with older age group games!
See you all next year where I pray we’ll have a much sunnier and warmer summer!