BSCC U19s edge Harold Wood in last ball thriller!

Skipper Benjy Furrer won the toss and batted first on a sticky wicket, with short boundaries in 3/4 directions.
Will C-S and Murray Davidson struggled to follow their heroics from last Sunday on the tricky wicket. They both fell in the teens, as did Tom Howes at 3. Quite incredibly we only scored our first single on the last ball of the powerplay! With the score 60-4 after 9 overs, Benjy Furrer and Henry Hawkins completely changed the complexity of the innings as they counter attacked scoring boundaries and 6s for fun. Henry eventually fell for 32 off just 16 balls, whilst Benjy went on to make an outstanding 65 off 33 balls. Will Dommett was the only other batter to make an impact with a vital 20 at the end of the innings. We finished 178-8 in our innings.

Harold Wood got off to a good start scoring early boundaries however Austin Osborne, who was our best bowler on the day, took three quick wickets to put us on top. Their number 4 and 5 then added 90 in very quick time, with their left hander particularly destructive against all our bowlers. They looked like they were going to canter to a win until Will C-S made the vital breakthrough bowling the left hander for 55 off 24 balls. That was followed by Henry Hawkins running out the other set batter the next ball to bring us right back into it.
Under huge pressure, Benjy took the ball himself and virtually bowled us to victory with a wicket and going for just 12 off 2 overs.
Harold Wood required 12 of the final 3 balls with their wicket keeper and final chance on strike. He hit the first one over mid off for 4, then hit the next one through square leg for another 4 and now required 4 runs off the final ball! Aidan Murphy held his nerve and bowled it full enough that he couldn’t get under it and hit it straight at Murray at mid off who got into a perfect long barrier like a brick wall to ensure the ball couldn’t go past him and we won by 2 runs!

It was a great win under pressure, and vital to our efforts of qualifying for the QFs. We now head into the final group game against Saffron Walden knowing it’s in our hands!