cricket 08 Sep 2007 10:34 am
Sunday 2nd Team Review 2007
As in 2006, the Sunday 2’s finished in 3rd place in the ASL. The loss of Steve Reynolds to Saturday cricket was always going to pose a challenge, so we should be satisfied with our efforts. We have been able to blood many more young cricketers (7 under 15’s played 34 games between them) and they all had the opportunity to contribute. With the weather reducing the season to just 9 fixtures, two of which were abandoned, it was difficult to get any momentum going. We finished with 3 wins, 2 winning draws and 3 defeats.
With the bat, we struggled with a young line up. Only 4 regular players managed to average more than 20 and our leading run scorer only manager 152 runs. The fact that this is an under 15, Mark Benbow should be applauded. He was one of three half centurians, in the fixture at Solihull Municipal along with Steve Mullard and Jim Rasin, a milestone that no-one else breached, apart from Jack Hemming’s century at Pickwick. Aman Singh was consistant and his battling 44 in atrocious conditions at Bablake was probably teh best innings of the year. Harvey Dhoofer also showed promise along with Jay Singh at Five Ways OE, he should make hay in Under 15 cricket next year. Overall, teh fact we were dismissed for less than 100 on three occassions probably cost us the title.
With the ball we were much better, Steve Mullard led the way with 13 wickets including our only 5-for against 5 Ways, Adile Mohmmed managed to bowl 30 overs at fractionally over 2 runs each, whilst Richard Whittle, Jim Rasin and Alex McDonald picked up 6 wickets apeice. Our fielding was generally quite steady, if a little unathletic (amongst both the juniors and seniors); this is certainly an error where our under 18 lag behind some of our opponants and one where work is required if they wish to progress to a higher standard.
Most importantly of all, I hope that everyone enjoyed themselves. It has not been an easy year for skippers everywhere with the poor weather and I have decided not to continue next season. There is an opportunity for someone to take on a side that can only improve.
One final point relates to the challenge facing the league, on multiple occassions we have come up against 1st team cricketers in the 2nd XI, sometimes 3 or 4 within the same side. How other sides use the league is up to them, but it has caused difficulties for ourselves. It is difficult to ask 15 year olds, to bowl against aggresive 1st team batsmen, and approaching dangerous to ask under equipped players to face a high quality quick bowler. In these situations there is a danger of doing more harm than good to their development. Whilst we have shied away from this approach,we felt obliged to play Jack at Pickwick who fielded 4 of the side who played in the Saturday 1st team fixture, without him we may well have been rolled over again, would the juniors have learnt anything, I doubt it. Senior experienced players have a key role to play in developing young cricketers and we have seen the beneift of having Jim and the 2 Steve’s doing this role. However when they are bowling first change and opening the batting, at teh expense of capable juniors something isn’t quite right. This is impossible to police through punative rules, it is up to the clubs to play within the spirit of the league, and I am proud of our stance on this issue.
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