On Friday 12th June, the annual Year 7 & 8 Girls State School Softball Festival took place at Quality Street. The festival was introduced two years ago with the aim of encouraging more girls from state schools to get involved in cricket, and it was fantastic to see such a strong representation from the girls’ section at Merstham Cricket Club across all the schools that attended.

Each player received a raffle ticket, giving them the chance to win one of several fantastic prizes at the end of the afternoon. Prizes included a Heather Knight London Spirit playing shirt, a signed Alex Hartley shirt, and two 60-minute coaching sessions at PowerPlay.

Home game held at the Ring

Merstham were first to bat with Lewis and Will being the first pair,  Priory were down a player so Sammy, Ibrahim, Will and Ollie alternated in assisting in fielding. Our team had a good innings and hit some fours. Sammy and Hugo were next in, and they both had some good runs and even a couple of fours from Hugo. Next in was captain Ollie Robinson alongside Charlotte,  who managed some good singles, but Reigate had some great bowlers, and one lad was super-fast, they had some good fortune and managed to get a couple of run outs.

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https://mailchi.mp/mersthamcc/mcc-newsletter-jun-2026

The 2 Under 8 teams continue to play brilliantly without quite getting the win that they deserve. At this level it’s often the case of the best team not winning, particularly if they are the better bowling side as we invariably are. 
We’ve seen some fantastic performances by all the children, and it’s great to see how they’ve improved over the last few weeks. It’s also been great watching the captains performing so well, and all the children supporting each other. 
Looking at the results from Saturday 30th May we saw a great catch at Beddington by Nat, along with excellent bowling by all the children, with wickets for Ethan and Jacob, and excellent batting, particularly by Felix with 27 runs. We did also see a fantastic catch by Sam from the opposition but let’s not dwell on that!
Against Ashtead both sides scored the same number of runs, but we lost 3 wickets to their 1 so came in just second. A superb performance against a big club, with a wicket for Austin, great batting from Kit, and Joseph McK, and great bowling from Kit, Dylan and Austin.
Finally, a special mention for all the volunteers who have stepped up to help, attended the First Aid course, and signed up for coaching courses, particularly Sara, Emily, Noel, Lyndon, Rachel, Eil, Dave, Tom, Matt and Vamsi. We couldn’t do this without you!

Fantastic team performance from the lads tonight. Batted first and showed how much they are developing as a team. Great running between the wickets, lots of chat as pairs when batting, and put away a few more of the wider balls to score a competitive total. But in the field, they were phenomenal. Superb bowling backed up by some great fielding. It was amazing to see the backing up on throws (saved at least 10+ runs), the diving stops for boundaries, and best of all, the tactical movement and set up. They spotted the gaps and moved each other around to plug them. And then the team celebrations when they took the wickets, an incredible 10 over the 20 overs but also when they won. Lovely to see how much they are developing the core skills but also coming together as a great bunch of lads / team!! Onwards to training and the next game.

I would like to say thank you to Sanderstead aswell they never gave up the fight, played some beautiful shots, and bowled nicely. All around, it was such a lovely game of cricket.

On Wednesday evening, the U14 girls team played our first match of the season away against Reigate Priory. We had high hopes for the season as we welcomed some new players into the team, many of whom we had never played with before.

We lost the toss and were put into bat. Caitlin O and Addy H opened, batting for 9 overs, before Caitlin retired for 40 (including 7 boundaries) and then Addy was bowled the next ball. At this point we were 58-1 as we welcomed 2 new batters, both on debut: Azilia D and Georgina W. Azilia won shot of the match with a flawless cover drive boundary, going for 4, before being bowled by an awful ball that didn’t bounce. New batter Bea BH hit a beautiful 6 over the square leg umpire, accompanied by a few more boundaries shared between her and Georgina, before they finished the innings on a whopping 108-2 off 16 overs.

It was a thrilling end to a tiresome game for both sides as Carter Wright managed to hold his nerve and deliver a last over going for 5 runs and taking 1 wicket in the process.

Batting

The U10 girls had a great evening at Quality Street.  Epsom arrived with 4 strong pairs to get the game underway. Winning the toss and putting Merstham in to bat, our first pair faced some good straight deliveries. A few well placed shots but a few making it through to the stumps. Our batting innings saw us put on 73 runs but 9 wickets down meant we were defending 228 (pairs scoring gets complicated)

The run Chase got off to a fast start with Epsom hitting a few boundaries in quick succession. The Merstham girls fielded well and chased the ball hard limiting the runs wherever they could.  Despite a few late wickets, Epsom were able to put on 119 runs finishing the game 299/4. 
The Merstham girls are extremely excited for their next game and are looking forward to putting into practice some of the The valuable lessons they picked up during the game

Under cloudy skies and threat of rain, our U12 team hosted local rivals Salfords at the Ring in an evening game of pairs cricket. Winning the toss and bravely electing to bowl first in worsening light, Salfords' opening bowlers gave a hint of what was to come as our opening pair of Harrison T and Archie H struggled with the lack of pace and bounce, scoring 17 off 4 overs for the loss of 5 wickets, a net score of -8. Our next pair of Oli M and Hugo B managed to survive their 4 overs without loss, adding 11 as we broke even. Lucy M and Matthew K added a further 10 for the loss of 1 wicket, and Casper D and Flynn RP continued the mini revival adding net 7 with some imaginative running. Our net score was just 15 from 16 overs, going onto the final pair. Thomas B and Yousaf S showed good intent against Salfords' final pair of bowlers adding 24 runs for the loss of 1 wicket. Merstham finished on 79-9, a net score of just 34.

The Under 8s had their first matches on Saturday 16th May, with a home fixture against Epsom and an away fixture at Oxted. Whilst we came second in both matches, there was some great batting and bowling and the children were all brilliant. Thanks to all the parents who helped umpire, score and organise the matches. We have a great (and full) squad this year, so hopefully we have many more great matches to come!