FAMILIARITY DOES NOT BREED CONTEMPT
Sutton U11 130 for 3 (24 overs)
Reigate U11 118 for 6 (24 overs)
Sutton Win By 12 runs
Sutton under 11s showed their senior counterparts that Reigate Priory
are not invincible the morning after the 3 senior sides had drawn a blank in
their respective matches. This is the fourth year of friendly hostility between
these 2 groups of boys and the match lived up to the season highlight billing
it has enjoyed previously. It was a tough, competitive match interlaced with
some excellent cricket from both sides and as ever played in a great spirit.
Cricket as it is meant to be.
Sutton's skipper lost his first toss of the season and was invited to bat by his opposite number. The previous match on the same strip had shown that the pitch offered bowlers some early unpredictable bounce and so this was to be a stern test for the home batsmen. They rose to the challenge superbly, as Owen and Harry compiled a thoughtful and sensible opening stand of 72 at almost 5 an over and seeing off Reigate's opening quicks who bowled tight and aggressive spells exploiting the uneven bounce and forcing both openers to watch the ball considerably closer than Robert Green had managed the previous evening. It was an excellent start and after Harry had retired with a mature and well managed 32, Owen quickly followed for an equally valuable 22 and it looked like Sutton might lose momentum. However, Josh Blake played a classic anchor innings at three, adding a personal 22 and valuable partnerships of 18 and 29 with Patrick and Matthew respectively; the latter in particular batting combatively and with style in reaching 24 off 18 balls. So momentum was not lost and Sutton compiled at 5+ an over throughout with a final over yielding an important 11 as Matthew and Jack ran well. This was always going to be a decent score against a good bowling side and crucially one that had not previously chased that sort of score - or at least not against a side with bowlers of Sutton's calibre. The team had batted well and quiet confidence was the order of the day as far as team talks were concerned, notwithstanding some twitching by some doom merchants on the boundary.
After lashings of juice and cakes provided by the oppo manager (cheers Steve, it made for the best half time team talk ever as all mouths were full and thus no awkward questions asked) Sutton went out into the field knowing that bowling straight and tight fielding would win the game - we were confident that RP could not get 130 off the bat against our bowlers and if we kept the extras count under 30 the game could be won. It proved to be spookily prophetic with the boys concentrating on containment and taking wickets in equal measure. Despite the odd aberration the fielding was athletic and tight, and not suffering as often as Reigate did from lapses that turned singles into fours. Marcus as ever typified the effort using his throat to stop a certain 4, and even Cap’n Bambi getting his long legs moving to dive and flip one back before it reached the rope. The bowlers responded to the plea to bowl straight by halving the extras count from the previous week. No-one took a hatful of wickets but they all contributed decent spells, with Josh, Lekan and Ayrton all chipping in with a wicket but more crucially at less than 3 an over. Owen (also 1 wicket) and Jack bowled good 4 over spells, the latter unlucky again not to pick up a wicket. Reigate never quite matched the required rate as the home side kept them under pressure in the field with Jack and Lekan putting in their usual big shifts with a calm run out and a catch apiece. With Reigate needing 30 off the last 4 overs some thought we had almost contrived to lose the game but in truth those on the field remained in a state of calm control and oozed confidence. Jack, Owen and Josh were entrusted to bowl the crucial "death" overs and they all responded magnificently to restrict RP to 18 off the last 4 and win the game by 12. Josh's final over in particular was a beauty of control and flight and as enjoyable to watch as any stump splitting over from a quick. Trust them and more often than not they deliver.
And so we remain unbeaten but still a point behind Reigate but we will fight on to the end as it won't be over till its over. In typical English fashion and mirrored by the predictable reaction to the previous night’s football, it sometimes seems more appropriate to view achievements in the negative and start our analysis of this and last weeks wins as games we "almost managed to lose" rather than the good victories they actually are. Don't rest on laurels or become complacent of course, but look for the positives first for goodness sake. By my reckoning that’s around 25 consecutive league victories over the last 3 years. Like all runs that will come to an end at some point but until then we should be happy to have team that (in order) plays for each other with good spirit and good grace and one that wins most of the time. They can't all be world-beaters every week, but lets be honest they are usually very good.
