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East v West at Blundells School May 15th

East skipper Alex Brown won the toss and asked West to field. Openers Grainger and Cole seemed happy to take things slowly initially but the loss of Grainger bowled by Willis brought Brown to the crease who immediately looked to take the attack to the West bowlers. He dispatched every bad ball to the boundary in a short but impressive knock as he was unluckily stumped by Stephenson with the ball rebounding back off the keepers pads onto the stumps. Thereafter none of the East batsman really managed to establish any sort of partnership as wickets fell at regular intervals, the best partnership being 35 between Gabbittas (12) and Menheneott (18). Some powerful hitting at the end by Jacob Crouch got East past 150, a total that really was never going to be enough. The pick of the West bowling would have to be Dan Sanders who bowled a full, straight line picking up four wickets for 13 runs. His brother Chris also picked up a wicket in tidy spell of 1-19 from seven overs. Skipper Ryan Skinner bowled quick enough but bowled too short although he did pick up two wickets in his second spell. The West fielded and bowled far better than the previous week against the South which pleased coach James Carr. 

The West reply got off to a shaky start losing opener Chapman for 0. This did not seem to affect the other batsmen though as first Bennett (14) and Sanders (38) put on 41 for the second wicket and then Sanders was joined by Hill (40) who played very aggressively as they took the score to 91 with a partnership of 46. Ian White (22 no) and George Stephenson, having a very good Inter District Competition, (28 no) added an unbeaten 49 with Stephenson hitting the winnings with a six to complete a very good win for the West. At no point during the innings did the East manage to stem the flow of runs and in all honesty probably felt that they should have scored 40 or 50 runs to post a competitive total, Jack Lilly d'Cruz picked up a couple of wickets in a decent opening spell and there was a wicket apiece for Cole and Crouch but by that time the game was already slipping away from the East. The West have now won the U12 Inter District competition for what is believed to be the first occasion, so well done everyone involved. Thanks once again to the hosts Blundells school and to the ladies of the East for a lovely tea.

East 159-9 (A Brown 25, J Crouch 21, D Sanders 4-13, R Skinner 2-33)

West 164-4 (A Hill 40, C Sanders 38, G Stephenson 28no, I White 22no, J Lilly D’Cruz 2-17)

Men of the match: Brown (E) and Sanders (W)