After a two week layoff since the heavy defeat by West Haddon & Guilsborough, the Cooks U11s made the short trip to Grange Park looking to pick up a first win of the season. The late withdrawal of Luke Venkatasamy [fell off his bike] meant the Cooks had 7 players, but so had Grange Park so were at no disadvantage. There was a seasonal debut for stalwart Hrishi ‘tic-tac’ Dave who predictably pulled out the tic-tacs during the warm-up!
For the fourth straight game, skipper Jake won the toss and Grange Park were batting. Having won a last-ball thriller last season, the lads scented a win and went out to field with optimism.
The Cook’s opening bowlers George and Prashil [finally got the spelling correct!] were struggling to keep a grip on the wet ball and a hold of their footing as they ran in from the wet grass onto the artificial wicket and the Grange Park openers racked up 22-0 from the first four overs, with the batsmen particularly strong through square leg.
They continued to bat sensibly but the next two could only manage two runs off the bat from the next four overs bowled by Liam and Aidan. Aidan’s bowling is really coming on now, and his three overs were the best he has bowled for the team with no runs from the bat.
Similarly, Mohit Hellan produced two cracking overs with only a single and a no-ball allowed and although the Cooks were not taking wickets, Grange Park were not scoring heavily either. Jake produced his usual tight ‘death’ bowling, bowling three straight maidens and Grange Park finished on 45-0 from their 16 overs. A special mention for Prashil’s fielding, a bundle of energy, some excellent sliding stops and a good arm, well done! [Although I think his mum may need a bigger bottle of Vanish to get the stains out of his whites]
A quick chat to explain that only 12 runs per pair would win the game if we didn’t lose wickets, plus with the expectation of a few wides from the Grange Park bowlers, each player had their target to achieve.
With a slight change in the batting order, George and Mohit entered the fray. Both batted sensibly with Mohit displaying a most-unusual batting stance and although he was bowled, we were still in the hunt. The quote of the day from Ben was “We’ve got Geoff Boycott [George] at one end and Babe Ruth [Mohit] at the other” to describe their batting styles.
Aidan and Prasil kept up the good work, not getting out as planned and seeing Grange Park’s bowlers continue to rack up the wides and no-balls. This was just as well as Liam and Hrishi contrived for two needless run outs and we were suddenly in danger of not getting the runs. This was made worse when Jake was bowled as well, but with a combination of good running from Liam and Jake and extras totting up, we got home by 12 runs and fairly comfortably in the end.
Ultimately, there wasn’t much between the two teams, however Cogenhoe conceded 28 runs in extras and Grange Park conceded 53, which tipped the balance in our favour, even though we lost four wickets in the process. We definitely bowled better than the opposition, but we still need to work on transferring our practice batting into match batting.
However, it was good to get the first win under our belts this year and we enjoyed the biscuits at the end!
Thanks to Charlie for umpiring and Ben for scoring. Next U11s match will be on Friday 17th June [at home to Horton] and then again on Sunday 19th June [at Heyford], no game this Sunday due to a fixture clash for Horton.