BSCC U12 vs Reed U13

It was a last ball thriller in the BSCC vs Reed Summer League match this evening.

We won the toss and chose to bat, unfortunately we lost Charlie Laking first ball to an absolute jaffa. Ben Foster and Harry Pigram then put on a 40 partnership before Ben was out LBW sweeping. Harry went on to retire for a quality 26*. Henry Hawkins continued our consistent scoring along with Jamie Ward, unfortunately Henry was run out for a great 22 and Jamie out LBW for 13. Zac Saunders provided the finishing touches with 10* as we got 118-5 in our 20 overs.

We were not able to start how we wanted as bowled a large amount of early extras. Over half of the first 40 runs were extras which wasn’t ideal! However, we did manage to bowl a lot of dot balls too which meant is was an even start. Charlie Laking was the first bowler to take a wicket, taking 2 wickets in 3 balls. There was also wickets for Luca Barnes and TJ Tyndall, aided by a good stumping from Henry Hawkins.
The Reed No.3 batsmen had stayed in throughout the fall of wickets and started to take the game away from us, scoring quickly before retiring for 26*.

It was a very tight finish with Reed needing 32 off 36 balls. Sadly, there were three frankly disgraceful wide calls against us from the oppo umpire, which kept them in touching distance. Then they hit a lucky boundary meaning they needed 5 off the last over to win. Harry Pigram had the ball and bowled excellently to restrict Reed to just 4 runs off his over meaning both teams tied on exactly 118-5 from 20 overs.

Both teams were left disappointed, us because we were the stronger team and felt hard done by by the suspicious wide calls, and them because they would’ve felt they should’ve won only needing 5 off the last over.

In the end, we need to look at ourselves as we should’ve won, wide calls or not. We bowled far too many extras which was the real reason that the game was even close in the end. Hopefully we’ll learn for the next match at Hoddesdon on Wednesday!