Hawkesbury U13s development team travelled to Quedgeley and Hardwicke for their final game in the league on Wednesday evening and enjoyed the perfect end to the season in glorious conditions. The sun was shining, both teams played with smiles on their faces and we finished the season with a good win in a lovely game of cricket vs our lovely hosts.

Cooper came away from the rock, paper scissors contest with a defeat up top and we were put into bat. After a bit of a shaky start with a few early wickets going down without the scorers being overly troubled - Notable was Jimmer coming to the crease and bashing a lovely 4 through mid on in his time at the crease swinging the willow. James Scott walked in and casually dispatched his first ball for 6 through point! The runs kept flowing with some lovely leg side glances until a ball going down leg caught the wind and came back to clip his leg stump - well batted James, with 26 from 30 balls. Sam batted calmly and well with James to keep the runs flowing, finishing on 22 from 27, then Toby and Cooper came in as our final partnership, with both adding 18 runs each in fluent fashion, some lovely 4s and Cooper finishing with a strike rate of 180%! We went in for half time oranges having set Quedgeley 136 to win. It was great innings to watch from square leg, batters playing with intent to look to score, reacting well to opportunities to run extras and some outstanding bits of fielding from Quedgeley and a very even share of the bowling and wickets.

Reuben donned the gloves for our stint in the field and did very well standing close to some of the quicker bowlers we had playing. Lila took the honour of opening the bowling and delivered a perfect set of 6 for a maiden - can’t ask for a better start than that! Well done Lila. Henry took over 2 and got the 1st breakthrough mid way through the over when the opening bat went to try and crash the ball for another 4, got a leading edge, sent it up into orbit for Toby to chase around from cover and take a great catch. Jimmer and Fletch were the next bowling pair, both very accurate and tidy with very few runs conceded - helping to build more pressure on the batting. James Scott delivered the next wicket with a great run out fielding behind the keeper. Cooper and James Scott were the 3rd bowling pair, Cooper bowling with accuracy and composure, James with pace, picking up a wicket with his first ball, clean bowling the batter with some lovely away swing drift, then finishing his 1st over with another clean bowled wicket - a fantastic over! Over 11 saw all those hours of fielding practice on a Tuesday evening prove worth it… a nice shot by the batter out to mid off, they took on a run but Lila had different ideas, she gathered and took aim in one fluid motion and smashed the non-striker’s stumps to pieces with a direct hit run out that Jonty Rhodes would have been proud of! Toby and Sam were the final bowling pair - again bowling with accuracy, both very unlucky not to pick up more wickets - Toby did pick up one, when the batter mis-timed a midwicket hoik and found captain Cooper with 2 very ready hands to hold on to the catch. With 4 overs left our hosts found themselves well behind the rate and without many wickets left, we closed the game out with 4 more accurate overs, Fletch picking up a lovely final wicket for the team, with Lila taking a fantastic catch at point from his bowling. Cooper closed out the match with the final over, helping deliver a 33 run win.

That leaves Hawks 2nd currently in the development south league with some of the other teams to finish their matches in the coming weeks - a great season for the team with huge improvements noticeable across all aspects of the game. The coach was very happy. Well done kids.