U13’s defeated on sunny evening to Oxford.

With Mark Fransham away it was left to John Moss to run the U13’s for the evening game at Jordan Hill

Knowing a few of the players from previous seasons I thought we had a reasonable chance, but Oxford always have a couple of good players and this proved to be the case again.

With the decision-making process all the hands of Skipper Sam Fransham, he won the toss and elected to Bat (against my advice!!)

Opening up was Neil Talmaki and Thomas Lord, this partnership was strong and they could not break through, until Talmaki (10) missed an away swinging ball and took out his off stump but not before some trade mark Talmaki big shots to the boundary!, in came Aryan and Jacob just when bowler Isaac started to find line and length and he soon cleared them both up,

That Brought Max Earp to the crease with Tom and they continued to play shots until Max was bowled by Kaylan for (16) and Tom for a very steady and confident (16), Marco (8) chasing for runs was run out

Sam Fransham (Not Out 10) was next in but he was batting down the order so he could bowl, he had a couple of really big shots but ran out of overs with Dylan

Overall this was a good batting performance from KCC, with Kidlington finishing on 71-6 from 20 Overs, we were probably 20-30 runs short on a very fast outfield.

This brought Oxford into Bat, Tom (17) and Adyan (12) we bowled very well but Oxford hit the ball harder and ran a lot more than we did, Sam Fransham was on fire with the ball (4-0-4-4) and with myself having the benefit of umpiring at his end, this is a 1st team player in the making, great attitude and passionate appeals for LBW, along with all the fielders! Young Debutant Edd Symes (4-0-28-1) picked up his first wicket but Oxford liked his fast pace and the ball just flew to the boundary! Neil bowled well (3-0-10-1) picking up the only other wicket, with Aryan (3-0-15-0) and Jacob (1-0-5-0), and Marco (0.3-0-1-0)

With about 10 overs gone and Sam on fire we were in the game, but they batted down the order, Issac (not out 17) being there star player with Bat and Ball, getting to the required score with 4 overs remaining.

Overall a good performance we need to work on hitting the ball harder, a bit less talking in the field, and running a lot more, loved being back at youth level with the guys!