Our U19s had their first group game of the Ravi Bopara Essex T20 competition last week at home to Harlow.

Harlow won the toss and elected to bowl first. Unfortunately we lost a couple of early wickets which brought Austin Osborne to the crease alongside Max Sanderson. After an initial rebuilding period, both lads started to expand, in particular Max who hit three 6s in a row including the biggest six I’ve ever seen (still rising as it reached the top of the big trees on the bottom pitch). Max (65) and Austin (60) added 115 together to put us in a strong position. Ben Foster came in with a handy 17* at the end of our innings as we posted 169-5 in our 20 overs.

In response we knew both of Harlow’s county openers well having played them many times for St Margs over the years. Unfortunately we were unable to remove either of them early as both batters scored boundaries all round the ground. We let ourselves down in the field with a couple of drops and far too many midfields. Finally we took a wicket with an excellent catch from debutant Matt Fisk off Austin’s bowling. Fisky then removed Harlow’s other opener which left Harlow 120-2 off 12 overs needing only 50 overs from 8 overs. BSCC fought back with Sam Braund taking a couple of important wickets as he and Fisky really tied Harlow down.
It all came down to the final over with Harlow requiring 7 off it with their No.3 batter still in and set. James Frans was the man with the ball. First ball was a leg bye followed by a big wicket. Then came a dot followed by a wide and a single to get their set batsman back on strike needing 5 from 2 balls. Unfortunately their batter hit a fantastic one bounce four down the ground meaning scores were level. Fransy held his nerve on the final ball beating the bat and Fozzie doing well with the gloves to catch it cleanly and complete the run out.

In the end a tie was probably fair, we had batted well to get to 169 having been 10-2 off 3 overs. A combination of their two excellent openers and our poor bowling/fielding meant the game was Harlow’s to lose needing 50 off 8 overs only 2 down however our lads showed some grit to earn the tie.

The tie meant we can still qualify as long as we beat Saffron Walden and Colchester in the other two group games.