Hook U9's vs Wield U9's, Sunday 9th June
This was an important away game against Hook who had narrowly lost to Rowledge, the only other undefeated team in the U9's Swifts league this season, giving Wield an opportunity to test our mettle against one of the stronger teams.
With a chill in the air, our captain for the day Sam applauded Wield's opening batsmen, Bruce and Charlie out to the crease where they gave us a very solid start, against some tenacious bowling. Sam and Edward followed the scoring theme with Sam confidently hitting some magnificent shots and Edward lending sterling support, despite some risky calling from Sam. Wilf & Oliver then put on a batting masterclass with Wilf hitting an unbeaten 21, with some supreme shots and very keen running between the stumps. Gilbert and Ellie rounded off a great batting performance with Gilbert hitting his customary six, supported by some great calling and stroke play which resulted in an unbeaten 19 and Ellie scoring a couple of nice fours. Final score was 286 – 5, which was an amazing total as Hook had a couple of really good bowlers.
After tea and team talk over, we felt a good performance in the field was required and that’s precisely what we got as Wield went on to bowl, catch, stump and generally out hustle the opposition to a convincing victory. It was easily our finest performance of the season and Wield quite rightly ran out worthy winners. Sam and Gilbert got 3 wickets each, Ellie got 2 wickets, with Bruce, Charlie and Oliver getting a wicket each. Wilf even bowled a hat-trick with the last 3 balls of the match, which really finished Hook off and was simply breathtaking stuff! Incredibly, we bowled them out for 182 - 14, which meant that Wield won by 104 runs, remarkably impressive against the 2nd placed team in the league.
Whilst it was great to see the quality of our catching (where we didn’t drop a single ball) and our bowling, where Wilf, Gilbert and Oliver deserve a particular mention with lovely line, length, speed and accuracy , it was particularly pleasing to see how the team encouraged each other throughout the match and as a group, they were fantastic and fully deserved their chocolate treat at the end. The Hook coach told me afterwards that we were the best team they’d faced all season – which was wonderful to hear and fully deserved based on that performance.
Roll on Rowledge and Zooters!!
For the outstanding hattrick in his final over leaving Hook utterly shell-shocked, Wilf lifted the Man of the Match accolade this week.
Well done to all.
Ian Thompson