BSCC WIN U17 HERTS LEAGUE!

Yesterday, our U17s beat Berkhamsted in the U17 Herts League Final at Welwyn Garden City, in a thoroughly deserved win.

We won the toss and elected to bowl, knowing WGC was a good pitch and we backed ourselves to chase anything. We got off to a great start with Sam Robinson taking the early wicket. Berko then knocked the ball around for the next 8 overs, before Freddie Chapman and Kieran Surujbally took two quick wickets to end an excellent first 10 overs for us as they were 60-3. Berko then started to accelerate as they hit boundaries all over the park. Liam Mays and Aidan Murphy took a wicket each, with Will Cutlan-Smyth excellently running out one of their hitters from the boundary, however Berko were still able to make it up to 156-6 in their 20 overs.

We knew we could’ve done better in the field and kept them to a lower score, however we still had confidence that we had enough batting to get us home!

Murray Davidson started in style as he has done all year hitting a couple of massive 6s early on. Unfortunately we lost Ben Cowper and Will Cutlan-Smyth in quick succession to put us on the back foot, however skipper Benjy Furrer came in at No.4 and put on an outstanding 81 run partnership with Murray. Both lads combined big hitting with excellent running on the huge WGC outfield, and Berko had no answer to either of them. Murray reached another richly deserved 50 of the year with yet another 6, this time into out over Long Off! It looked as if these two would take us home until Murray was excellently caught on the boundary for 70. We still needed 27 off 4 overs so the game was still alive, however Aidan Murphy came in and quickly despatched any hope for Berko with two dominant pull shots for 4. Benjy also continued to attack, playing a perfect reverse sweep for 4 before reaching his excellent 50 the next ball. And quite rightly, Benjy hit the winning runs with a perfectly placed two, winning us the Herts League with 8 balls to spare!

I’m so happy and proud of these lads for winning this competition, we came into the season knowing we had the potential to be the best in Herts. We thought we’d thrown it away with a poor performance in the group stage, however we did just enough to get through the group and then dominated the finals stage!

Across the season, everyone has contributed, with Aidan, Olly, Ben, Will, Damo and Matt all getting scores in different games. Whilst Sam, Liam, Freddie, Max, Archie, Kieran, Charlie and Josh all contributed with wickets throughout too (don’t forget Tom’s fielding in the final). But a special mention has to go to the skipper Benjy Furrer for performing in the final with an outstanding 52* under a lot of pressure. And an even bigger mention has to go to Murray Davidson, who averaged 84 with a strike rate of 161 in this competition, including a match winning 70 in the final! Murray also won Junior Player of the Season for his incredible efforts in the U17/U19s (427 runs @ 85.3, SR: 158).

This win caps off an outstanding Junior season for BSCC. We reached many finals and semi finals in the U14s and above, which are fantastic efforts but it was the icing on the cake to win the trophy yesterday! Fingers crossed next season will be just as enjoyable and successful!