West Essex U13 Cup v Stansted Hall & Elsenham

Finally the sun shone at Cricketfield Lane, as our U12 XI opened their season with a cup game versus Stansted Hall & Elsenham U13s. On a picture perfect morning, skipper Alec Chappell lost the toss but was happy to see the oppostion elect to bat first.

In retrospect, getting first use of a wicket that was obviously reasonably soft probably worked to Stansted Hall's advantage, as their opening pair got off to a flier against the new ball. Connor Mak and Jamie Riley both went wicketless and it took the introduction of Bradley Moon to make the breakthrough, as he took a good catch off his own bowling.

Further economical bowling from Alec Chappell and Sam Gardner slowed the scoring rate before Zac Izod picked up our second wicket. An injury to keeper Niall Trimble saw Connor Mak take over behind the stumps, and he did a sound job towards the end of the innnings.

A total of 130-2 from 24 overs was probably 10-15 more than we hoped to concede, but it could have been worse as Stansted Hall had wickets in hand and failed to make the most of their rapid start.

In reply, Chris Millns fell early but Bradley and Alec ran well together to take the score to 49. Brad went on to score an excellent and rapid 25 before retiring, with Will Bowman giving him solid support at no.4.

As ever, the introduction of a spin bowler saw the scoring rate decline, and although we had been up with the required rate for the first 12 overs, a tight spell from Stansted's skipper saw us fall behind. Despite excellent batting from Stephen Walsh and Niall Trimble, both of whom played easily their best innings for the club, we could not find the boundary regularly enough and fell 15 runus short when our innings closed.

Despite the defeat I was very pleased with the boys' performance. Our bowling was a little rusty and several half chances went begging, but our batting showed some real improvement and on a slow wicket all the batsmen were positive and showed good technique and discipline.

Next time out we need to show more energy and alertness in the field which will come with experience. All in all, a satisfactory start.