An ideal for morning for cricket greeted the U13 CHL pairs team as we arrived for our third game of the season against Astwood bank.

Having won the toss Earlswood decided to bat first.

Each batting pair played positively trying to capitalise on a slow pitch, however this often leads to loss of wickets, and this was the case for earlswood as each of the first three pairs lost wickets to slow balls whilst trying to hit a boundary, where on this sort of pitch a push into space would of been the preferred option. The last batting pair of Pierce Ryan and Josh Massey came out with 236 on the board, and both played sensible cricket to push the score onto 260.

Batsman of the Match : Josh Massey

Earlswood came out determined to defend the score and take our first victory of the campaign, however the first two batting pairs of Astwood bank played sensible no risk cricket and took the score to 250-0 after 8 overs. Josh Massey and James Taylor were chosen to bowl against the third pair and bowled very well to build pressure on the batting team, with James Taylor taking the fist wicket after a good catch in the deep by Max Burke. This restricted the score to 256-1 after 12 overs.

With the pressure on both batting and fielding teams Daniel Empson and Pierce Ryan had kept the score to just 258-1 after 14 overs, however in the 15th over Astwood bank relieved the pressure with two boundaries to take the score to 266 after 15 overs.
Pierce Ryan bowled the last over and took the second wicket of the match to put the pressure back on the bating side, however the Astwood bank captain played no risk cricket to see out the last 4 balls and clinch victory for Astwood Bank by 3 runs.

Bowler of the Match : James Taylor

Man of the Match : Pierce Ryan