Elstead U11 V Grayswood U11, League Match, Thursday 28th June 2012

A sunny Thursday evening saw Elstead host Grayswood and put them into bat following winning the toss. It was to be an evening of wayward bowling all around, as the visitors, following loosing their no.1 and no.3 batsmen for 4 and 0, found the scoreboard ticking over automatically following the bowling of a plethera of no balls and wides. It was Ben who made the initial breakthrough, bowling opener George for 4, followed by a sharp Rafa throw to run out Zack for 0 off Sams bowling. By the 5th over the score had climbed to 28 for 2, with no more breakthroughs until the 9th over when the score was on 50 with Will being run out following an accurate throw in from Luke for 1 run off Sams bowling again. The first ball of the next over, bowled by Peter, Cameron was bowled out for a golden duck. The score continued to tick along with the score on 71 for 4 after 14 overs when Rafa came on for a spell with immediate success. First Rafa clean bowled returning opener Nick for 11 runs, followed 3 balls later by Connor on his second visit to the wicket also for 2 runs. This was to be as good as it got with wicket taking, the remaining retired batsmen returning to finish off the innings on 100 for 6 off 20 overs. Captain for the day Kieran, managed to engineer the use of 10 of his bowlers, however it was to be at a cost as accuracy deserted them at times, gifting Grayswood a 'christmas hamper sized' 51 runs as extras!

Elstead's reply started off promisingly enough with the top 4 in the batting order all retiring, Sam on 2, Elliot on 3, Rafa on 14 and Ben on 12. By the 10th over Elstead were on 57 for 0 and looked in total control and cruising to a comfortable victory. However, the scoring then locked up, Harry was bowled for 2 runs, Kieran and Peter carried their bat for 0 and 1 respectively from 25 balls. Archie unfortunately played onto his wicket for 0 and Robbie was run out for 1 again off 16 balls between them. Jack and Luke had a flurry at the end - Jack showing great promise having been promoted from the U9s to the U11 squad for the remainder of the season, to end up run out on the final ball for 7 runs. Unfortunately our openers did not get a second look in. The Elstead innings concluded on 85 for 4 off 20 overs - just 15 runs short of victory. In engineering their win, Grayswood only bowled their top 6 bowlers, but still managed to gift Elstead 42 extras in the process.

Grayswood 100 for 6 off 20 overs
Elstead 85 for 4 off 20 overs
Grayswod win