Hawks fly up the table following back-to-back wins

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Merstham's U9 Hawks played another double header last weekend - and to start with, on the Friday evening against Lingfield, it looked like being a very long weekend indeed.

Fielding first, the Hawks struggled to cope with the heat and the vagaries of the pitch at The Ring, and Lingfield were progressing really well.

But the team were kick-started into life by an incredible spell of four wickets in five balls, with an amazing hat-trick of run-outs - wicket-keeper Ben Lehain involved in all of them (up until the previous match this was a team that hadn’t achieved any run-outs at all this season). Lingfield finished their 20 overs on 310-6: four of them run-outs, with Jacob Law taking the other two wickets.

This still meant the Hawks had to beat their high score for the season; a task that was made even harder when the Hawks lost a wicket after three balls. But this team are fighters (not literally - that’s just not cricket…), and so began an incredible assault on the Lingfield bowlers (again, not literally).

Every partnership played their part: Jake Dean and Dinuk Jayamanne (15) put on 31 in their four overs; Fred Cantrel (22) and Jamie Cattermole smashed 33; Daniel Greaves and Jake Bendall contributed 22; Ben (19) and Jacob (10) bludgeoned 33; leaving Ollie Durston and Matthew Gray (14) to see out the match, which they did with calmness and style.

The Hawks ended on 338-5, winning by 28 – more than 50 runs more than they’d achieved in any other match this season.

But there was no time for celebration and open-topped bus parades, as the team had a challenging fixture against the Reigate Priory Llamas the next morning. Batting first this time, the Hawks again batted well, with Ben (18), Jacob (16), Dinuk (12) and Fred (12) all continuing their great form. But some very good Llamas’ fielding and three reckless run-outs meant that the Hawks posted a final score of 297-7, a tough figure to defend on such a batting-friendly pitch.

The Hawks worked hard in the field, but with six overs to go the Llamas required only 27 runs, and were looking favourites for the win. But yet again the Hawks dug deep and went into “lock-down” mode - restricting the Llamas to a net score of only six runs from those final overs, through a combination of fast accurate bowling and terrific fielding in the deep. Reigate Llamas finished on 277-9, 20 runs short of the target.

Ben Lehain took two wickets, Matthew snaffled two great catches, and across the 20 overs we gave up a miserly 12 wides, a season’s best. Special mention must go to Jake Dean who bowled fabulously across both games, not giving up a single wide or no ball.

Two great victories in the space of 18 hours - what a team!