Winning start

A really confident start to the season for Egham U11s who with assurance won the toss and batted with a wet outfield, which incidentally cost us a few boundaries, due to its slow nature. The innings started slowly with Matthew Dargue and Sam Whitehead who were clearly getting used to a new season, although Matthew did hit a wonderful straight drive through mid-off. The second pair Jack Bibby and Noah Trend (on debut) consolidated well putting on 18 in their two overs without loss. This pattern continued with George, Freddie, Sammy and John who all produced partnerships of 19 and 20 respectively with loss of very few wickets. Then the most productive pairing entered the fray with Will and Jack Arnold. Not only did they run well between the wickets but Jack in particular punishing poor deliveries. This was done with the best bowling of the day by Valley End. A score of 277 will be tough to chase.

Surely if Egham produced a second half performance as good as the first they would emerge victors?

George and John opened up well, with good lines, although I feel they could have attacked that off stump a little more. Although, Valley End did struggle to get the ball away. Freddie and Sam Whitehead continued in a similar fashion but bowled both sides of the wicket and conceded slightly more runs. The outfield was now speeding up and good hits were comfortably reaching the boundary line. But excellent fielding notably from George Lee with a tumbling catch to his right and Sammy Johnson with direct hit for a run out reminded Valley End that this would be an extremely difficult challenge. Valley End ended up finishing 16 runs short but with my completely biased opinion I thought Egham thoroughly deserved their victory by out batting, fielding and bowling a competitive Valley End.