The sun finally came out and we enjoyed an excellent finish to the school cricket season.
The U12As travelled to Hayes last Monday for their Kent Cup semi final fixture and were full of confidence after their unbeaten season. Unfortunately, the side had a bit of an off day and despite bowling Hayes out for 98 with Akhil taking 4 wickets and Aaron taking 3 we couldn’t get going with the bat. Ed Castle was the stand out batsman but the side lost regular wickets and fell 12 runs short. The side finished the season on a high though and gave Mr Thomas a great send off in his final Saturday school fixture beating Caterham on Saturday by 23 runs. Akhil scored 51 and was well supported by Jake who scored 31 and Aaron 18. Although Caterham kept up with the rate in reply Eltham took regular wickets and Ed put in a match winning spell of 3 wickets for 3 runs in 3 overs. The U12Bs lost by 40 runs at Caterham despite Dan E bowling well to take 2 wickets.
The U13s finished the season well as A-D had wins over Colfe’s last Monday before both the As and Bs won at home to Caterham on Saturday. The As bowled well first up against Colfe’s with Jon the pick as the side restricted them to 110 in 25 overs. Matthew, Max and Adem then all batted well as the side won by 7 wickets. Matthew and Max continued their good form on Saturday with an excellent opening partnership and Matthew scored a fine 78. A small collapse followed but the side had enough and a good all-round bowling performance with Jacob taking 5-20 saw the side to victory. The Bs had two similar wins against Colfe’s and Caterham as Hector and Oles batted well on both occasions. Dan was the pick of the bowlers against Colfe’s whilst Boris took 3 wickets against Caterham. The Cs had a comfortable victory against Colfe’s by 6 wickets as Soham took 2 wickets and Seb was the stand out with the bat whilst the Ds had an easy win with Akeel and Krish doing well.
The U14s had a tough end to the season as they travelled to Caterham early Saturday morning. Although an excellent catch by Ethan and a key wicket for Frank put Eltham in a good position with Caterham 61-3 at the half way point in their innings the side lost their way in the heat and Caterham ended up scoring 225 in 30 overs. Eltham gave it a really good go in reply and Blue scored a fantastic 70 but we fell short by 60. The Bs also found it tough going and although Joe smashed 29 off 17 balls in our chase to give us a chance the side fell short.
The U15As played their final match as an age group but fell short of chasing 144 in 20 overs after a late collapse. The team bowled and fielded pretty well in the heat and at the halfway point of our chase were well placed with Josh and Benjy both scoring 30s as we needed 70 in the last 10 overs. Some good late hitting by Ed got us to within 15 but it wasn’t quite enough. The Bs had a fantastic win and full credit to the five U13s (Charlie, Adem, Matthew, Lysander and Dom) who played up after a number of U15s dropped out following Duke of Edinburgh excursions the previous 3 days. Matthew scored 42, Adem 20 not out and Will 35 as we scored 184-5. In reply, Charlie took a fantastic catch behind the stumps first ball whilst Lysander and Tommy took 2 wickets in a 70 run win.
The 1st XI played a mixed side including Benjy in Year 10 and both Blue and Ethan in Year 9 against Judd last Wednesday. The side batted first and posted 109-8 in 20 overs as Jacob and Conrad batted well. Connor bowled tight early on and took a wicket well caught by Blue and although we took regular wickets Judd reached our target with a couple of overs to go. The 1st XI then had an excellent match to finish the season against Caterham and welcomed Mr Batty back to Eltham. Sulaiman and James bowled beautifully with the new ball and Sulaiman took 2 wickets as well as a Conrad run out as Caterham fell to 60-3 off 15 overs. However, the Caterham number 3 batsman was still in and attacked our change bowlers as he scored a superb 100 in the Caterham total of 223. Despite an early wicket, captain Ken and Anu put on a superb partnership of 118 for the 2nd wicket to put us in a good position. Unfortunately we lost both in the space of 2 balls, Ken for 46 and Anu for 60, as a small collapse took place. Jacob, James and Conrad all attacked towards the end and James scored 40 but the side finished 23 runs short.
