Boys' Cricket: U11A v St. Mary's
St. Mary’s Melrose : 86-5 (T. McNicol – 2-0-9-1)
Belhaven : 87-2 (B. Bucher 30, J. Foster 20*, A. Brownlow 12*)
Belhaven won by 8 wickets
Ever since my pessimistic proclamation that it always rained on match day, the sun has shone almost ceaselessly, and so it was again as St. Mary’s Melrose made the one hour journey to Belhaven on another beautiful afternoon. St. Mary’s chose to bat first and captain A. Rofe started positively, calling with authority and punishing any leg side deliveries. Belhaven were a little disoriented in the field and we need to get better at the changeover between overs, as our well-set ring soon took on several rather alarmingly different patterns as the over ticked by! We didn’t bowl quite as accurately as we had in the previous game against Strathallan, but the newly promoted Tommy was the pick of the attack and took a vital wicket in two very tidy overs. He and Sam, also promoted from the Bs after some good batting, both also took good catches as we restricted St. Mary’s to 86-5 from their 20 overs, Rofe having made a very good 38 before being run out by Alfie. This wasn’t our best fielding performance but we held our catches and, once again, everyone bowled.
It was soon quite clear that not everyone was going to bat as Beetle and Johnny set about the St. Mary’s bowling attack with real purpose. Running well and playing far straighter than has been the case in the past, both batted with real conviction and quickly notched up the first 50 partnership of the season. Beetle was particularly strong through the legside and scored his 30 from just 24 balls with five boundaries. Johnny was content to play second fiddle and pushed straight balls into gaps and ran well, rotating the strike and giving good support. After both Beetle and Harry B were run out, Alfie joined Johnny for a very effective partnership of 22 from 24 balls to see us home with six overs to spare. We completed the 20 overs in order to give some more bowlers and batters a go out in the middle. This was St. Mary’s first game and it is very clear how much progress is made by virtue of match practice – these two teams will play some close matches against each other over the years to come. To have played four matches has been fantastic – lots of hard work will be needed over the winter if some of these Under 11s are looking to play for the 1st XI next summer – how lucky we are to have the nets in the Sports Hall! Well done to all of the Under 11s who have played with great spirit and learned a lot over the course of this term.
