BSCC juniors finally kick off the season & cricket was the winner!

After explaining the COVID-19 and cricket rules to the 21 young BSCC players, we finally kicked off the junior cricket season with the BSCC U11s to bat first.

Batting started slowly with accurate U12s bowling and some over-cautious batting; Dexter (-3), Ed C(1), Cass (1) and Will (-4). Kim (5) and Krish (2) who are actually U10s faired slightly better without losing a wicket, but the score was still 33 runs after the 3 pairs had batted. What followed next was a batting master class from Suzannah (U13s) who top scored with 21 runs, hitting 3 boundries. Her approach was simple - block the straight deliveries and swing hard and be aggressive on wider deliveries. Alicia (-6) also played some nice attacking shots, but fell twice. Oss (-6) and Henry (-2) faced the most aggressive U12s bowler, James, whilst Daniel (10) played a nice pull shot for 4, but then never threatened again. So after 22 overs, BSCC U11s reached a below par score of 268 for 6 wickets and needed to bowl & field exceptionally well to have a sniff!

The U12s started well with Tom (21) and Joe (7) putting together 34 runs for the first pair, even with Ed C taking an early wicket. Then Cass and Alicia bowled tight to hold back Jack and Leo to 21 runs. Oss and Henry were the pick of the bowlers with 3 quick wickets and only 3 more runs to add for the pair. Kim and Suzzannah then piled on more pressure picking up 2 more wickets to keep the U12s to 265 runs, before the final pair walked in. U11s now had a slim chance of an upset, but, it would take somthing special from Daniel and Dexter to keep James and Luca to below just 4 runs!

Unfortunately, James was too strong and punished any short pitched delivery. Even though Daniel picked up quick 2 wickets, James top scored with 24 runs hitting 4 big blows, helping his team to victory with 289 runs for 7 wickets.

Field positions and tactics are also important aspects of cricket and something the team and the captain need to learn - as I don't think I'm allowed to do as much coaching during a match again!

I hope every player enjoyed the match and learnt something. There are a lot of things for everyone (apart from Suzannah!) to work on, which we can hopefully cover over the the coming weeks. So, hope to see you all at training tomorrow!

Fred (BSCC U11s coaah & manager) .