As the Cricket season draws to a close, several of our Upper Sixth played their final match for the School at the weekend and finished with some superb results. The 1st XI won all three of their matches last week as the side defeated The Forty Club, The MCC and Dulwich College.
We hosted The Forty Club on Wednesday and a young side including five students from Year 10 who put in an excellent performance. After the loss of some early wickets, Archie Langley batted fluently for 43 before he was dismissed just before lunch. After the break, Connor Fuller and Ben Mirchandani put together a fantastic partnership before Ben was dismissed for 48 on his 1st XI debut. Connor reached his 50 before some late hitting allowed us to declare at 219-9. Ahsan Siddique bowled a excellent opening spell and picked up one wicket before tea, but it wasn’t until after tea that the wickets started falling more regularly. Connor settled into a long spell from one end and bowled brilliantly to take 5 wickets as he got support from Elliot LeHane and Archie who took one apiece and Ahsan who picked up two in his second spell. The Forty Club were dismissed for 124 to give Eltham victory by 95 runs.
Another superb performance followed the next day when The 1st XI were able to defeat The MCC for the first time in many years. A disciplined bowling performance allowed Eltham to restrict The MCC to 199-7 before their declaration after 53 overs. Connor and James Smith took two wickets each. Sam Smith and Arran Khanna started well in reply and although Arran was dismissed with the score on 73 Nico Murlowski joined Sam at the crease and the two of them batted fantastically against an experienced bowling attack. An injury to one of the MCC players gave Eltham’s Under 14 captain Charlie Smith the chance to field for the opposition, and he ended up running out Nico for 55 with a great piece of fielding! Sam continued though and reached his 100 just before the target was achieved. It was a perfect innings from Sam as he finished 109 not out.
On Saturday the side put in a great all-around performance to beat Dulwich College by 53 runs. Batting first, Ben Day top scored with 60 and was well supported by Ken Dixson (26), Owen Davies (27), Arran (21) and George Jackson (17) as Eltham scored 211-9 from 50 overs. Superb opening spells by Owen and Ben then reduced Dulwich to 31-4. Although Dulwich came back into the match, two wickets for Connor kept Eltham on top before Owen returned to take his 4th wicket and Arran bowled an excellent spell to finish off the innings. It was a great win and to have 8 Upper Sixth contributing was fantastic. For the 6 boys who played their final game, we thank them for all of their efforts for Eltham Cricket over the last 7 (and in many cases 11 years). All the best to Owen, Arran, Tom, James, George and Gabe.
The highlight of the week was the Kent Cup triumph for the Under 15A team against St Lawrence College at Wye Cricket Club. The team put in an incredible performance as they won a nail-biting match by just 4 runs. Please see captain Joe Bilsby’s report of the match later this week.
It was a busy week for the Under 14s who played Sevenoaks last Thursday before Dulwich on Saturday. The As batted well in both games with Benjy Davis, Aditya Kumar and Josh Hutchings making good contributions against Sevenoaks and Charlie Reynolds and Eddie Botes batting well against Dulwich. However, some loose bowling and fielding cost the side on both occasions. The Bs had a good win against Sevenoaks with Alex Macheath the star taking 2 wickets and scoring 84. Max Milliner batted well for 37 too and followed it up with another good score against Dulwich. Will Langton batted brilliantly for 81 too but the side fell 25 runs short or a big Dulwich total.
The Under 13As played well on Saturday morning against Dulwich but a late collapse left us just short of victory despite David Bampoe bowling well to take 5 wickets and Aditya Kumar scoring 50. The Bs had a tough morning in the field but batted well to score over 100 against a good Dulwich side.
The Under 12As again put in a good bowling and fielding performance on Saturday morning to restrict Dulwich to 110-7 but kept losing wickets in our chase as we fell 15 runs short. The Bs had a similar morning at Dulwich as good bowling limited Dulwich to 127-6 but we were 85-7 at the close of our innings.
