Chesham B U'12s vs Ley Hill U'12s, 14^th June 2006
Friendly, played at Chartridge

Ian Partington

Ley Hill 93-5 (20 overs) Chesham B 95-4 (18.1 overs)

Ley Hill narrowly lost a closely fought match against Chesham B at Chartridge. With three Ley Hill players turning up late, it was agreed that we should bat first in order to get the match on the way. Having been unfortunate to lose the early wicket of Jamie Lewis, when the score was on 10, good work by Alex Partington (26) and Michael Morris (18 not out) enabled Hill to recover.  By the 9^th over we were looking for a score in the region of 100 runs plus. Chesham however worked hard to peg back the run rate, and Ley Hill finished on 93-5 with Michael Morris having held the innings together, remaining undefeated.

Ben Woodbridge and Rory Sore opened the bowling for Ley Hill and soon had Chesham a wicket down when the score was on 13. Further wickets fell to Peter Garland and Alex Partington to reduce Chesham to 29-3. However, Chesham then rallied with a 57 run partnership as the game slipped away.

On the positive side, Ley Hill fought to the bitter end and Tom Cullen behind the stumps conceded only 1 bye. Also it was pleasing to see more batsmen getting confidence and scoring runs. On the negative side, we dropped our first catches this year. However, the spectacular one-handed diving effort by Josh Wright would have been the catch of the season had he managed to hang on to it.

The team need to make sure that they arrive on time ready to start the match by 6:00 p.m. They also need to; tighten up on their bowling; be more alert when batting; and improve their running between the wickets.  Calling was often non-existent, and when made were often called by the wrong batsman! Further batsmen were often looking down at their shoelaces or fussing with their clothing when there had been a misfield or overthrows were available. Valuable runs often missed.

Special mention should be made of Toby Deane (aged 9) who came in at late notice and fielded superbly almost running a Chesham player out.

Matt Wright gave the man of the match award to Michael Morris for his 18 not out and one wicket for the cost of 4 runs.