Ballyclare High School U12 V Regent House U12

Saturday 10 th May 2008

We came out onto the pitch commenting on the width of the wicket and knew we couldn’t bowl too far off the stumps. I decided we should bowl first because the ground was wet and we didn’t want the ball to be worn out by the time it was our turn to bowl.

Regent started off a bit shakily, only managing to defend the opening bowlers, West and Richardson. They made a few fours after the fifth over. Then Richardson got the opening batsmen and captain out after the ball came off his bat, rolled and hit the stumps. The batsmen who came in after the captain didn’t bat too well and eventually West had him stumped. The other opening batsmen played a lot of defensive shots and managed to stay in. We continued to get more wickets with great bowling from Thomas Warnock and Kyle Higginson.

West and Richardson bowled the last two overs. During the last over, Chris West stumped the other opening batsmen as he swung for a big shot and missed. Regent finished batting with 52 runs.

We were confident we could make a good score and probably win the match. West and Richardson opened the batting but they had two very good bowlers up against us. We were trying to play ourselves in and then hit the bad balls for four runs. We got the scoring off the mark with some singles and then Richardson hit the first of many fours. Ballyclare continued to bat well until Richardson got a ball right on my middle stump and tried to hit it for 4 but missed it. He was out for five runs.

Kyle Higginson came in at number three and was straight off the mark with a lot of fours. This gave Chris West the confidence to hit a lot of fours as well. Their partnership continued and they were soon in front of Regent. After thirteen overs we had made 53 runs and won the match. We were all very pleased with the way we played against such difficult opposition.

Michael Richardson