Cricket Update

Year 7 Cricket

Year 7 played their second league match, hosting The Downs at Brown’s Meadow. The Downs won the toss and put St Bart’s into bat first. The team has been rotated each match, and Bart’s scored a respectable 76 runs, for the loss of 8 wickets. The Downs replied with 106 runs of their allotted 75 balls, for 4 wickets. Andrew Antony Rosewelt made a catch from behind the stumps (bowled by James Hale), Matthew Brown bowled one wicket, Joe Shadrach ran out one batsmen (bowled by Joshi Hunt), and James Hale bowled the fourth wicket taken by St Bart’s. Player of the match was Thomas Lee Rodriguez, for his batting and his positive teamwork and encouragement in the field.

 

 Year 8 Cricket

St Bart’s won against The Downs in their penultimate game of the cricket season. Bart’s batted first and posted a score of 111/5. The Downs were then unsuccessful with chasing down the total scoring 72/9. Players of the match were Tom and Joe L for their batting. Joe L scored 14 runs and Tom retired on 20. Sibi, Joe R and Freddie P were also named players of the match for their bowling. Joe R took 2 wickets and Freddie and Sibi both took 3 wickets.

 

1st XI cricket: 10 out of Y10s for effort

The next generation of 1st XI cricketers announced themselves in some style against Didcot’s St Birinus, albeit in a losing cause. As the public exam season drew to a close, there could have been no sterner test for Yudeesh and Luke, coming together at 9-3 in the third over after an Oxfordshire U18 left-arm pacer had ripped out our Y11 top three with a display of toe-crunching Yorkers redolent of prime Wasim Akram. With resolute character and excellent technique, the Y10 pair saw him and his Kent U19 colleague off and then set about the second-string bowling.

Luke’s rasping square cut was only pipped for shot of day by Yudeesh’s back-foot drive, the full face of the blade flashing in the direction of point. When Luke unluckily fell to a catch that was juggled at deep mid-wicket with more comic dexterity than something out of Gifford’s Circus (back touring this summer, folks), they had put on 73 in 10 overs, forcing the Akram-esque captain to bring himself back on. Yudeesh would continue to resist until he was within two of a splendid 50, but was snaffled on the off-drive by that Kentish close fielder. (It’s doubtful a lesser player would have clung on.) St Birinus rightly won the day by 50 runs, and passed what was effectively an audition for joining the Toby Radford Trophy competition with flying colours.

They accelerated brilliantly from 70-1 off 10 overs to 172-6, with their No 5 enjoying himself immensely, with 34 off 11 balls. Y11 Archie was the ultimate beneficiary of the end of the innings mayhem with 4-8 in two overs, but Y10 bowlers Sidney and Jimmy had the moments, while Ed was ebullient and energetic behind the stumps. It was great to see Y13 James return at short notice and be straight on the money with his leg-spin, too. All in all, much potential for the future.