The Cavaliers welcomed their friends from Hungerford to the Falkland Fortress in this mornings U11 league fixture. With three regulars absent, the Cavaliers called upon the troops to step up and, based on their excellent hard work in recent training sessions, three excellent replacements were on the team sheet.

Hungerford won a good toss, and on a pitch looking more like the outfield than the outfield did, rightly invited the Cavaliers to have a knock. The batting order was re-jigged with the Skipper dropping down the order and a new opening partnership was formed. With the new ball doing a bit off the green surface, the openers chose to knock the ball into the spaces and run hard… this they did excellently, picking up singles everywhere, interrupted only by the odd bunt to the boundary.

In the third over a Falkland first occurred. The Hungerford seamer sent down a good delivery that jagged off the wicket and flew wide down the leg side. The batsman’s eyes lit up as he swung hard, but with the extra width managed to swing himself round a full 360 degrees and clatter his stumps. This left the umpires and scorers a little dumbfounded. Is that out or not - a hit wicket from a wide?! It was given out, and a quick check of the laws showed the decision was correct – well done umps!

Putting that rare dismissal aside the openers and middle order continued to accumulate runs, and with some excellent running from the lower order, the Cavaliers had made it to 283-6 at the break.

The Cavaliers bowling attack was into the wickets early. Fast hostile accurate bowling had Hungerford struggling to keep up with the run rate right from the start of the innings. The intensity of the bowling and fielding was fierce, everyone doing Falkland proud. Every bowler took at least one wicket, and four maidens were bowled too. The troops who stepped up supported excellently – all that hard work in training paying off. However, in between the clattering of stumps Hungerford managed some excellent powerful strokes to the boundary – one of which almost decapitated the umpire! It was unfortunate though that every time some momentum grew for the visitors, wickets fell to peg them back. They closed on 197.

Thanks for the match Hungerford and good luck for the rest of the season.

Great work from the Cavaliers, who remain unbeaten and continue to improve their match play. Even better was the support they received from their cricket-loving fans who were out in numbers today – great to hear everyone cheering the boys on. Next match is the local derby against Newbury CC – who will have the town bragging rights? Come along Tuesday 18th June to find out!

Match player of the day: Ollie Olsberg
Champagne moment: Excellently run single from Leo ‘Slayer’