U17s through to county cup semi final

Despite missing three key players, the U17s delivered a thoroughly professional performance on Thursday evening to beat a strong Uxbridge side. The match was highly competitive - perhaps a little too competitive at times - with two highly committed teams playing with passion, and there are lessons that hopefully have been learnt about how and when to engage the opposition verbally during a match.

After Mungo won the toss and elected to bat the start was not what we hoped for with openers Tom and Sam T back in the pavilion before the end of the 3rd over. Sam A and Oliver batted briskly and pushed the run rate up to 7 per over before they too perished leaving us 62 for 4 in the 10th. The 5th wicket, though, was very productive as Mungo and Arjun batted aggressively but sensibly. Clean, straight hitting and hard running took us to 130 at the end of the 17th over when Arjun was caught on the boundary for an excellent 39 from 27.Stefan and Mungo kept the momentum up for the last three overs and we finished with 160 for 5.

The suspicion was that this was no more than par on a good batting pitch with wide open spaces and a fast outfield against a batting line up two county-level opening batsmen. So the E-men knew that the bowling and fielding needed to be focused and full of intensity - which they were. After Arjun trapped one opener with his second ball (3 for 1 in the second over), Oscar bowled the other with his second ball (32 for 2 after 6.2), Uxbridge were always behind the run rate. The pressure exerted by tight bowling and fielding brought a steady flow of wickets (2 more for Oscar, 2 for Stefan and a run out credited to Sam A), and despite a late rally Uxbridge closed on 97 for 8 from their 20 overs.

An excellent, all round performance from start to finish which takes us through to the county semi final. I'll circulate details of opposition (winners of East) and deadline for the fixture as soon as I have them.