Another glorious evening at the John Hawkins ground provided the backdrop for the Hawkesbury U13s first victory of the season in our final home fixture of 2021, a great match against close rivals Frocester. George R skippered the ship this evening, with some fine decisions throughout the game, first up - he won the toss and elected to bat. Will and Charlie opened up, with both looking in great form, both reaching the max allowed 25 runs before retiring not out (Charlie 25 and Will 28), Zac came in at 3 and carried on the glorious shots with a lovely knock of 12 runs, Jake once again anchored down and looked like he’s been playing this game for much longer than he has, 8 not out. Chloe headed in at #5 and got the runs ticking over with a couple of glorious boundaries, unluckily stumped by the very attentive Frocester keeper for a punchy, swift 10 with 2 lovely boundaries. George and Jake saw the innings out with Hawkesbury reaching a very good 111 for 2 at the end of the 20 overs. Will opened the bowling with great accuracy and pace! Keeping the Frocester opening pair defending without much opportunity to score. Tight bowling from Charlie and some great debut overs from Izzie kept the score down during the middle of the Frocester innings with wickets falling at regular intervals with George taking 2, with Will taking a great catch from George’s bowling. Chloe and Izzie combined for a great run out, with Chloe also taking a lovely bowled wicket and a high catch coming in from mid on along with some good boundary sweeping as ever. Zac seemed to keep everything from heading past him behind the stumps and we restricted the Frocester run rate in the final few overs to occasional singles only. Following a team huddle, George took the responsibility as captain to bowl the final over at the death, setting a great defensive field and keeping the bowling tight, even turning down the opportunity to appeal for a plum LBW to keep the possible retired not out Frocester keeper from returning to the crease for the final run chase! In the end Frocester fell 12 short, finishing at 100 for 5 from the 20 overs.

UPDATE - Next game is Weds 7th July away at Frampton. Then we will try and get the away fixture vs Tetbury lined up for Weds 14th July to conclude the 2021 fixture set.