Bowling masterclass by Cropredy sinks Kidlington

KCC's under 13s did themselves proud in this second round match of the Ron Maudsley Cup, but game up against a bowling unit that was just too good. Aaryan Jagnani gives a player's view:

"On Thursday 7th June, Kidlington had a cup match against Cropredy. Whoever lost this game would get knocked out. Unfortunately we did lose and got knocked out. The match was at 6pm at Cropredy.

Our fielding was okay, although they did manage to pull of a score of 93 runs. They got 30 byes. Sam, Josh, Elijah and Neil got lots of wickets. Our batting, it wasn't the best that we as a team could do. A spinner got 8 wickets and wiped our whole team out. We pulled a score of 44 all out."

Kidlington won the toss and chose to bowl first, with Toby Earp and Joshua Behal again co-captaining the game. Sam Fransham (4-0-13-1) and u13s debutant Elijah Clarke (3-0-6-1) put in a very tight opening spell of bowling, restricting Cropredy to just 14 for the first six overs. Toby Earp (3-0-10-0) and Josh Behal (3-0-20-1) were second change and also bowled very well. Cropredy's Radley did an excellent job of looking for quick singles and byes, but paid the price in three run outs, including two direct hits from Neil Talmaki and Elijah. Neil (3-0-11-2) came on and took the wickets of Tom North and Joe Coggins in the same over, Billy Worsley (3-0-18-0) offering some penetrating left arm swing from the other end that was unlucky to go unrewarded. Marcus Hewitt (1-0-3-0) and Sam closed the bowling. In all this was a very good bowling and fielding performance, from which Cropredy took 93-8.

In return Josh and Toby opened the batting against Cropredy's opening bowlers Dixon and Perry. Josh and Toby were ticking things along very nicely early on, bringing up a total of 22 after 4 overs. Things were looking nicely set when Toby (4) fell to an excellent ball from Cropredy's Dixon in the third over, Josh (14) following as his second victim in the fifth over. Nevertheless Elijah and Neil were looking to build on this solid start. Cropredy's star spinner Joe Coggins had other ideas though - coming on in the 8th over, he took the four wickets of Elijah Clarke, Aaryan Jagnani, Max Earp and Jacob Evans, the last three as a hat-trick. Kidlington had no answer to Joe - he finished with astonishing figures of 3.1-2-1-8. Sometimes you just have to say 'well done!'

Josh Behal was nominated Kidlington's player of the match, especially for the massive six he hit off the bowling of Perry. Cropredy's other opening bowler Dixon was nominated Cropredy's player of the match for taking the key wickets of Kidlington's two openers Behal and Earp.

Some real positives for Kidlington here - against a strong team we put in an excellent bowling and fielding display, much improved from the last time we were at Cropredy. We were just taken apart by some brilliant bowling on the other side. We will work hard in training to learn some defensive batting against spin, so that Joe has to work harder for his wickets when we see him again in two weeks time!

Aaryan has some suggestions: "In training, we could learn how to defend and attack spin balls. Our coach Nick and player Elijah can spin, we could use one net to learn how to play spin and another for pace. In training, Mark taught us a few steps how to play these shots. Whether the ball is short or full, you move back or forward to hit those balls. We need to learn fromourmistakes and utliise what we learn in training."

Well done to all our players - they all worked really hard, kept their heads up and enjoyed themselves. Big thanks to Michael Behal for umpiring, to parents and grandparents for transport and support, and to Fay Earp for being the boundary manager.