After the humbling defeat to Guildford the previous week, Elstead’s U11s bounced back with the performance of the season to thrash Fleet. Having lost the toss and being put into bat, Oli and Stan opened up. While scoring of the bat was slow at times, Fleet were leaking extras and we were up to 53 runs when Oli was bowled for 19 while quite rightly trying to attack. Stan hit a lovely six having been pegged back in previous overs and retired on 20 not out after having 30 balls. With such a solid foundation, and scoring at around 7 an over, Elstead knew a big score was on if they could avoid a collapse. Harry came in at 3 and immediately set to work finding gaps in the field and then hitting 6 fours. He raced to 30 retired from just 23 balls and Elstead were flying. Danny added 9 and was unluckily bowled dragging on, we lost Tom for 0 but Coen carried on the run rate with 15 from 16 balls, partnering with Jack at the end who added 6. Fleet gave a way a lot of extras and some wides and no balls were punishingly hit to the boundary as well, taking Elstead to a massive 170-3 and their biggest score of the season.

While Fleet started off at a decent rate, Stan broke through in the third over. All the Elstead bowlers were on point and the fielding was sharp, so as each over passed, the run chase required looked more and more out of reach for Fleet. Once Harry took 2 wickets in 2 balls in the 8th over, it was only going one way. Fleet were dismissed for 73 in the 15th over, giving Elstead victory by a whopping 93 runs. Harry finished with a superb 3 wickets for 5 runs, and after a recent dip in confidence with the ball it was great to see him back to his bowling best. Tom again bowled nicely, and took his frustration out on being bowled out for 0 by taking 2 Fleet wickets for just 8 runs. Benji and Oli both took a wicket for just 1 run, and Jack also claimed a scalp. A fantastic all round team performance with 4 batters getting decent scores and everyone bowling and fielding well. When we play like that, we’ll beat anyone, and the very friendly Fleet team were simply blown away by an Elstead team that was on fire.