Donmow v Gidea Park & Romford CC U16 on Sun 20 May 2007 at 1pm
Gidea Park & Romford CC Lost by 4 wickets
On a gorgeous sunny afternoon in pleasant surroundings, Great Dunmow U16's prevailed largely due to the fact that one of their batsmen scored 75 and none of ours did. It was that one contribution that was the difference between the sides. Park were inserted on a good flat pitch and lost Adam McKie in the first over, Tom Stephen batted well towards a solid 21 and he and Andrew Jones added 19 before the latter perished with an impatient mistimed drive to mid off. Connor Halsey supported Tom Stephen as they added 43 for the third wicket, and a usual crowd entertaining cameo 17 from Lloyd Renvoize saw GPR into the 80's but this succession of wickets left the side at 89 for 6 after 23 overs and staring down the barrell. Jack Miles however lifted the spirits hitting nothing but fours most of the time and clearly, the need to have to take a couple of singles exhausted him enough to give up his wicket for a quickfire 18. Enter the secret weapon Anurag Sharma, who to my knowledge has never been dismissed, and he guided the tail through to the end scoring 21 himself and helping the side add 36 precious runs leaving us on 146 for 9. Probably not enough in truth but more than was expected and at least something to bowl at.
In order to win this game GPR needed some early wickets and some pressure to be applied, sadly the Dunmow openers batted really well. There was nothing alarmingly wrong with the GPR bowling but there was no breakthrough and whilst the runs were kept down, Dunmow benefitted from knowing the scale of the task, were able to bat circumspectly and pick off the rogue bad ball. The first wicket finally fell in the 15th over with the score on 67, Connor Halsey, taking a break from keeping wicket owing to injury, bowling some interesting off-breaks. The real difference was made when 'Anu the Spin' came on to bowl. With great control he bowled 5 lovely overs, returning 1 for 12. The dismissal of Dunmows opener,Ollie Rooney, for 75 well made runs, bowled by Colin Campbell, saw a little panic amongst the Dunmow team as they suddenly lost 4 wickets for 14 runs in just 5 overs, three of them taken by the quick and deceptive Colin Campbell (3-19), but it was too little too late for GPR and Dunmow reached the target with 10 overs to spare. By and large an encouraging performance, from a young side, who will be up against it for most of this season given that they are all a year younger than most of the opposition. But there were some greatly encouraging signs all round, Tom, Connor and Jack all batted well, Anu starred with bat and ball and is a precious commodity for the team, Lloyd was his usual flamboyant and noisy self in all areas of the game and an asset to the team, Colin Campbell delivered a lovely spell of bowling at the end, but the enjoyable thing to see was that all the boys enjoyed the game and tried their heart out in the field and with the bat in the hand. It was a pleasure too, to see the parents all out in full support, and I have to say the tea was bloody marvellous, hats off to Gt Dunmow , if they want a friendly - bag it straight away !!
Gidea Park & Romford CC U16 Batting
146 for 9
Donmow Bowling
Donmow Batting
147 for 6
Gidea Park & Romford CC U16 Bowling