Ley Hill U'14s versus Penn & Tylers Green U'14s, 25th May 2004

Ian Walter

On a lovely evening for cricket and fresh from their win in Friday’s friendly against Chenies and Latimer the under 14’s faced Penn last Tuesday in confident mood.

Winning the toss Hill batted first on a ground little larger than our own and again broke the ‘100’, this time reaching 120 for 8. A solid batting display throughout the team saw no fewer than six players reach double figures without anyone hitting 20. There were good runs from the trusty blades of Craig Peterson, Ben Ford, Ollie Runswick and Stephen Walter but it was very pleasing to see significant contributions from new signings Richard Falconer, who held the innings together very sensibly for a long period, and Dan Wilde, who had a successful bowler’s thrash at the end.

A miserly opening spell from Sam Harrison and Christopher Morris restricted the opposition to just 12 from their first 7 overs (and six of these were from one monumental shot into a neighbour’s garden) before wickets began to fall at regular intervals. Penn briefly threatened following a whirlwind 47 from Simon Mason but the in-form Ben Ford bowled him with his first ball, and their innings faded away to total 93 for 9 from 20 overs. Ben took 3 for 3 at the end and there was also a wicket apiece for Sam, Stephen and Craig, but the luckless Chris Morris remained wicketless although only conceding three runs from his very accurate spell.

Special mention must go to Ollie Runswick for a fine display of wicket keeping. Although the fielding was a little sloppy at times as attention wandered (much to Mr P’s disgust who arrived for the end of the innings) it was pleasing to see three more run outs from the efforts of Ollie Mace (becoming a demon third man), Alex Wallis and Dan Wilde.

Next up are Dinton at home. Good job it’s a home game is what I say!