Hat-trick on the Heath

For some weeks, Roehampton U11s had shown potential, but contrived to fall short. Unnecessary numbers of wickets had been lost, with poor running between the wickets a feature, with bats not being grounded properly. At times there had been a lack of control in the fielding, and we had suffered a heavy count of wides and no-balls.

Yet there was increasing determination and progress was being made. At some point, the team was going to put in a performance with fewer unforced errors and someone was going to cop it. It turned out to be our friends at Spencer CC. Indeed, the only thing that didn’t work to plan was the weather, which saw Roehampton batting first in increasingly heavy drizzle. To the credit of Spencer, there was no grumbling, just an enthusiasm to play the match.

The runs flowed from the start.

The weather turned as Roehampton took to the field, heralding a performance that was, if anything, more impressive than the batting. In their 20 overs, Spencer were only able to score 58 off the bat, just 3 per over. Importantly, extras were just 14 as the second-string bowlers in particular kept their discipline. Furthermore, the whole team kept their heads in the field.

The highlight though was the accuracy of the bowling. Seven bowlers took wickets, a great breadth to the performance in the field, with contributions from Harry, Patrick, and Alex, and two-apiece from George and Jack. Two of our bowlers did even better: Quentin helped himself to three wickets, while Evie stood out even further, producing a hat-trick. Both produced some exceptional, good length deliveries, which were well beyond the abilities of the batsmen to play. A total of 14 wickets were taken, equivalent to 84 runs, more than the runs scored off the bat, restricting Spencer to under 200 even after adding the extras.

It was a strong day for both bat and ball, resulting in an impressive victory by just over 100 runs.