It was another hectic week of cricket with success for our Under 15As who have reached the Kent Cup final. The Under 15s won their semi-final match against The Canterbury Academy on Wednesday with Rikin Parikh scoring 50 not out as the team won by 8 wickets. Earlier, James Lambton had been the star performer with the ball taking three wickets while Yusuf Sait took two as Eltham restricted Canterbury to 101 all out from 20 overs. The side now play St Lawrence College in the final at Wye CC on Tuesday 19 June at 2pm.
The Under 12A team played New Hall School on Saturday morning, and after losing early wickets, the recovery was led by Jacob McCarthy who scored 44 and Adem Close who scored 20 in our total of 142. In reply, we took regular wickets but New Hall reached the total for the loss of 5 wickets.
The Under 13s had home matches against New Hall too, and Blue Collard scored an excellent 55 in the As as Eltham finished on 130 from 25 overs. New Hall batted very impressively though to knock the runs off for the loss of just 2 wickets. The Bs had a great start to their match taking two wickets before New Hall had scored a run but couldn’t keep it up as New Hall came back into the game scoring 123. In reply, although Saul Cogswell batted well for 23, we fell 22 runs short in our chase.
The Under 14s lost in the Kent Cup Quarter Final to Tonbridge School on Thursday afternoon. Despite some good batting by Alex Clout and Fergus Bidwell to help Eltham recover from a tough start with the bat we weren’t able to score enough runs as Tonbridge won by 8 wickets. On Saturday the Under 14As travelled to New Hall with a combined team including some Under 15 players and won an excellent match in the final over. Charlie Smith was the star with the ball bowling 5 overs and taking 5 wickets for just 9 runs. In reply, captain Alex Gallo and Charlie made a good start but after a little collapse it was left to some big hitting my James Lambton to get the side close before Aarin Patel and Aryan Gupta secured the victory. The Bs produced an excellent performance to win against New Hall too as an excellent all round bowling display restricted them to just 68. In reply, Alex Macheath batted superbly to lead the side home scoring 51.
The Under 15Bs batted well on Saturday morning against New Hall with Matthew Coleman scoring a half century in Eltham’s total of 166. However, it didn’t prove enough as New Hall got to the total with 4 wickets remaining.
The 1st XI played Thursday, Friday and Saturday and had tough fixtures against Sevenoaks, Whitgift and New Hall. Captain Sam Smith was the star performer against Sevenoaks as he scored a superb 106 in our total of 214-4 in 30 overs. Nico Murlowski also scored 74 in a fantastic partnership with Sam. Nico followed this up with an opening spell of 4 wickets for 17 runs in his 6 overs as Eltham dominated. James Smith also picked up a wicket before Year 10 debutants James Bush and Yusuf Sait both bowled excellent spells in tandem picking up a wicket each. Arran Khanna and Connor Fuller finished the match off as Sevenoaks were 90 all out. Friday’s match against Whitgift was the Regional Final of the National T20, and Eltham put in a superb performance before ultimately coming up just short . The fielding and bowling was fantastic as we restricted Whitgift to 133 in 20 overs. Ben Day the stand out performer with 3 wickets including 2 stumpings in 2 balls by Sam. Unfortunately our reply never got going against a very strong bowling attack and despite some good late hitting by Gabe Downer we were 33 runs short. A shame to lose but the end of a fantastic cup run and the furthest the school have got in years. Then on Saturday, a young First XI (including three Year 10s) travelled to New Hall and although the side made a fantastic start led by Owen Davies to reduce New Hall to 62-6 at drinks we weren’t able to keep the pressure up as they recovered to 161-9 in 40 overs. An incredible spell by their opening bowler put us in trouble in reply and although Nico and Year 10s Reyhan Taraq and Rikin Parikh battled well in tough conditions we were dismissed for just 81. Rikin batted beautifully for 23 not out to go with a wicket earlier in the day.
The cricket continues this week with matches every day before a full block against Dulwich College next Saturday.
