BSCC U14s lost the toss and were put into bat on a wonderful Stortford pitch and lovely July afternoon.
BSCC had lost Oli M, Dan L and James F, but the new openers Alex W (22) and Tom Moore (31) put up a fantastic 69 run opening partnership. Sam (11) and Matt Furrer (12 n.o.) tried to maintain the momentum, but could only help take the total to 115/7 off 20 overs, with some tight St Margs bowling. TBH, their spinners did most of the damage, taking 5 out of the 7 wickets and 4 with the score on 94! One area we should work on more is to swing at deliveries wide of the stumps, without a slip and when the batter is in, rather than block or worse still just leave them to the keeper! Two other areas for positive strokes are; (1) punch in the V when pitched up and (2) pull or cut when pitched short. We will continue to work on knowing where your stumps are - maybe taking the off stump guard and then playing the right shot depending on the delivery line and length.
In the second innings, BSCC bowled their spinners early, with Luca B (3-24-1) picking up a wicket. Matt F (2-12-1) also bowled well picking up a wicket with away movement, but their number 3 & 4 batters batted sensibly, scoring 36 and 31 not out each, to take St Margs over the line with a couple of overs spare. There were a couple of difficult catches which went down, and we bowled just too many wides (24 runs!) with the opposition chasing a low total - something we need to work on in the next few matches if we are to go deep in this competition!
So, St Margs are the only team who beat us twice this year. This means we end up in second place and with only 3 highest point scoring second position teams making the playoffs, things may become tight - depends on how the other teams finish. For sure, we will be playing away.
FYI, the play offs will be in the week of the 10th (exact day tbc) and the finals, if we make it, will be on Sunday 17th, so hopefully most players will be available!