U11 @ Scottish Schools Softball Cricket Championship

Beat GWC by 1 run

On a beautiful day up in Perth, our U11 Squad boys were taking part in the U11 National Cricket Finals. After scraping through our group after two victories and a defeat to a very impressive Strathallan side, we qualified to the Cup Semi-Final against Glasgow Academy.

Having lost the toss, our batters struggled to get going only making 39 off our 30 balls. What followed was an outstanding display of bowling and fielding from the boys. Michael with a double wicket maiden and Max bowling superbly at the death to restrict Glasgow Academy to 30. This was a real backs to the wall win, with everyone contributing and momentum starting to shift in our favour, in particular Oliver with some wonderful intelligent captaincy.

Having comprehensively beaten us in the group, we expected to meet Strathallan in the final, however George Watson’s beat Strathallan in the other semi-final. Oliver lost the toss and once again we were put into bat against a strong Watson’s line up. The message to the boys was to be positive and embrace being underdogs going into the final. Monty did just that and smashed the first ball of the final for a massive 6 that settled the boys, ten more crucial runs followed in that over, before runs started to dry up. Crucially, the pairs that followed did not get out and rotated the strike well, in order to post 60 off our allocation of 45 balls.

Max opened up and bowled well in his first spell, with more good bowling from Michael and Monty following, which began to put a squeeze on Watson’s at the start. The second Watson’s pair looked to tee off in the middle of the innings leaving the game on a knife edge. Up stepped David, who bagged a crucial wicket, with Oliver also making a wonderful stop to restrict Watson’s in the penultimate over. Max once again had the final over, not knowing what was needed to secure victory only added to the tension with the neutral umpire saying “it’s a tight one.” Max bowled superbly under pressure limiting Watson’s to 7 runs, but with the third ball of the over Stuart took an unbelievable catch on the boundary which ultimately saw the side home by 1 run.

A genuine pleasure coaching you all today! Well done – U11 Scottish Softball Champions!