U9s and U10s enjoy great starts: juniors round-up

The Under 9s have started the season in great style, winning four of their opening five games. There has also been a great start by the Under 10 Hippos and an enthusiastic start for the Under 10 Rhinos.

Of those four wins, three have been by significant margins, but the most recent game against Lingfield went down to the very last over, when they won by only six runs.

There have been many great individual performances this season, but special mention should be made of the game against Nutfield, when Will John-Cox scored 40 off 12 balls (including five sixes) and Jacob Law 37 off 13.  

Despite these two innings, the leading run scorer so far is Max Thomas, who has already amassed 62 from three innings.  Hamdan Rashid, Matty Beggs and Roman Cameron have all scored runs and taken wickets.  Lyle Wesson is proving to be a dominant batsman, and Matt Cripps’ bowling is regularly unplayable by batsmen.  

But as much as there have been a number of great individual performances, what’s been most encouraging is the number of boys that have been involved in matches already this season.  The whole squad have shown enthusiasm and positivity - and 25 boys have already played at least one game this season.

As we always stress, the main thing for us is that the boys are enjoying their cricket, encourage each other and are eager to improve.  Hopefully that’s the case for all - and so we look forward to the next run of matches.

This year we have two U10 sides in the ESCL, and have split them into a broadly stronger and slightly less strong team. For both teams this is their first year of hard ball cricket, and the transition has been challenging for all, particularly as space limitations meant that we were only able to practise hard ball a couple of times in winter nets.  However, the progress that all have made already this season has been incredibly encouraging, and the future bodes well.

Whilst the Rhinos haven’t yet been able to win any games, they are rapidly improving and success will no doubt come soon. The bowling has been improving rapidly - Connor, Sascha, Charlie M and Thomas have all taken at least a couple of wickets, and regular run-outs, athletic fielding and Joshua’s wicket-keeping have helped to restrict the opposition’s run scoring.

However, scoring runs ourselves has been the problem - well, for everyone other than Connor, who is one of the few players in the league to score at more than a run a ball.  But they’re all working hard in training, and there’s no doubt that it will pay off soon.

The Hippos have started the season with three wins from their first four games.  The one game they lost they were actually ahead of the opposition for much of the game, but a combination of a great last wicket partnership from the opposition and the Hippos melting in the heat, meant that Oxted ran out worthy winners.  But it was an excellent learning experience, and it’s been encouraging how the team are already putting into practice some of the lessons learnt from that day.

Runs and wickets have been shared between all the boys.  James, Will, Max, Ben L, Ben W and Jacob have all scored double figures in games, some with classy stroke-play, others with brutal power-hitting.  Barney and Dinuk have both achieved three wickets in a match, and Matt G, Flynn, Matty B and Jacob have all had two-fees. James and Michael have shared keeping duties, and have kept remarkably cheerful given some of the wayward bowling and throwing they’ve had to handle at times.

The fielding has been steadily improving, although there have been a lot of dropped catches and the boys still get over-excited when faced with a run-out opportunity - hopefully that will improve with time (and less sugar intact before and during games).  

Thanks to all the boys and their parents for being unremittingly enthusiastic and supportive - whether winning or losing, all have shown great sportsmanship.

And finally, special mention must be made to Max Yates - after a great debut match against Chipstead he broke his collarbone in a “training accident”, and has had to sit out the subsequent games.  We look forward to welcoming him back soon.

Graeme Law