RCC U11A register their second win of the season against a solid Sunbury side

Wednesday 10th May 2017:
RCC U11A v Sunbury U11 @ Old Deer Park

RCC U11A innings: 119-3
Sunbury U11 innings: 110-7

On a gloriously sunny May afternoon at Old Deer Park, RCC U11A played their second game of the season against a Sunbury side fielding one of Middlesex’s fastest U11 bowlers. Sunbury lost the toss and RCC U11A captain Findlay choose to bat first. Our opening left handed pair Nikhil and Anirudh faced young Tommy B of Sunbury whose pace needs to be witnessed to be believed, and both saw him off admirably, preserving their wickets during those tense early overs. Nikhil looked composed at the crease as ever, scoring 7 runs before inside edging onto his stumps. This brought in Arjun. As ever with building an innings, things never quite look so great after 10 overs, and RCC U11As were only on 36-1 by that point. In fact it wasn’t until the 13th over that things started to pick up, with the introduction of Fraser with the remit to go out and up the tempo. This he did with aplomb, and between Ani and Fraser the score quickly accelerated. Ani then bludgeoned 25 off 10 balls to reach his fifty, the first for the U11As this season, and second overall after Karan's fifty on Tuesday for the Bs, and was duly retired. In came Findlay, followed by Hugo and then Chris in the final couple of overs all looking to score quickly, with Chris striking a couple of meaty blows for a decent 7 not out, and Fraser finished on 5 not out. RCC U11A finished on 119 for 3 off 20 overs.

This should have proven to be an above par score, however what followed was somewhat of a less than ideal fielding performance, albeit punctuated by 2 glorious overs from Ollie at the start, and some great fielding for a total of 3 run outs. Ollie’s first over saw 2 wickets fall, one caught behind and the other LBW. This seriously dented the hopes of Sunbury and probably was the match defining over, although Ollie’s run out of Sunbury’s best batsman also put a further nail in the coffin. However what followed was a series of steady overs in terms of bowling, but some lax fielding helped to keep the score board ticking over and the bowling pressure applied was eased. Then Neil and Chris took 2 wickets which meant Sunbury were never really able to get their noses in front so by the time we got into the final 4 overs, 33 runs were needed. Fraser, Arjun and Findlay then bowled some relatively tight overs which meant Sunbury were 10 runs short of victory after their 20 overs.

This was not a great fielding display for RCC U11As, as they let too many errors creep in during the fielding and bowled 11 wides and 3 no balls. Had it not been for a Ollie inspired 2 wicket first over, run out and catch, I fear the result could have been significantly worse. Good work Olllie!

At the end of the day however, I don’t want to take away anything from the great innings we saw from Anirudh. We all have seen him bat in the nets and know he is a very capable batsmen. In this game he showed us exactly what he can do. Well done Ani!
For that wonderful innings, Ani is my MOTM.