Welcome to a new season of Under 15s. Rob Barber and I will provide match reports each week for all the Duffield Under 15s matches. Home and Away.

For our first fixture of the new season we were pitched with a reasonably tough match away at Mickleover Sports. The first thing we had to accomplish was to win the toss and field. Skipper Bygraves failed at this and against our will we were put into bat.

So, Nick and partner Mike Williams went to the crease to start the ball rolling, but before they could get going Mike became the first victim after being bowled after scoring only 7. In came myself and after a good start I managed to ‘york myself’ (as Dave Stevenson would say) and was dismissed with my middle stump out the ground. Could we be on the way to disastrous defeat? Not when Sam Hamilton came strolling onto the field! Although he looked nervous to begin with and did have luck on his side and he came out with a solid 28 and with the support of James Saunders later on, after the dismissal of Nick Bygraves for only 3, gave the visitors some hope. Finishing of the innings was George Kelly and Will Isenberg with some suicidal running but were lucky and added a few runs to the total.

Duffield 76-6 after 20 overs.

With giving Mickleover a target of 77 to win Duffield needed to bowl and field extremely well to give them any hope of an opening day win. And so we did! With Mike Poyner and Edd Witten opening the bowling, expectations were high. We got off to a great start when Poyner took the Wicket of Mickleover Captain Sam Lomas after only the third ball sending his middle stump off into the distance (sorry to boast). Edd didnt bowl that well but with nerves sinking in maybe we needed a good performance from him and he was taken off after 3 overs. On came Mike Williams and immediately took a wicket. Taking his victim with a beautiful lofty ball hitting the batsman square on the pads. Up went the appeal and the finger was up! Poyner finished his spell with figures of 1 for 3 off 4 overs bowling fast and keeping the runs down. Jamie stepped up and looked to do better with the ball than he had with the bat (a duck). He did just that, taking the wicket of former Duffield player Luke Chambers by ripping he stumps out. He bowled line and length for his 4 overs and with Mike Williams bowling well it looked as though Duffield could be on the way to great victory. But in just wasn’t to be. Mickleover picked up the pace and with support from non-other than Dominic Corks stepson they met the target with 2 overs left. Duffield played well and were left wondering what might have been if their top batsmen had maybe hit the runs that the expectations were showing.

Unlucky Lads

Next Game: Rolls Royce (cup 1st round)

Related Links:
The Young Guns