U15A Play off v Mill Hill Village

The U15As were back in action on Monday after we decided to call Mill Hill Village's bluff and agreed to a fixture with barely 48 hours notice. Missing five regular players, stand in manager Steve requested that a worn wicket be prepared in the hope that the two available spinners would be catered for, but unfortunately Shrey was taken ill and had to pull out with only a couple of hours notice, leaving Eddie as the sole tweaker. Luckily Josh was available as a late replacement.

Captain Henry was put in to bat (which he didn't mind one bit) and OEs scored reasonably freely off the new ball but kept relinquishing their wickets on a regular basis partly due to some variable bounce. Nevertheless they managed to plunder 110 runs off the bat - a wagging tail (Ethan and Ewan hit some cracking shots) and a helpful 21 extras led to a very defendable total of 131 all out off the allotted 20 overs. Extras would be a recurring theme though...

The unpredictable pitch ensured that Mill Hill Village struggled from the get-go, and despite facing some pretty wayward bowling they lacked the firepower to keep up with the required run rate. Eddie used the turning wicket well to return 1 for 14 and Qasim was on a hat trick at one point in his spell of 3 for 12. Three run outs were well executed also. Top scorer for Mill Hill was in fact Extras, a whopping 33 of them and only 4 of them were fielding extras which gives some indication of how the bowlers' struggled on the day to bowl a reasonable line and length.

Mill Hill ended up 32 runs short and OEs go through to play a club from North area in the next round. The quality of the opposition, whoever they are, will be top notch and we can be sure that if we gift them with 5 extra overs worth of deliveries like we did today then we will make life very difficult for ourselves.