Hertfordshire’s county squad played their first game of the new season on Sunday the 18th September at Fairfield Community Hall. Our opposition was the England Under 21’s squad.
The under 21’s ranged in age from 10 to 17, they were accompanied by the England under 21’s manager Brian Baker, coach Martin McGregor and many parents and siblings.
Play commenced at 09.30 with four mats of fours over eight ends being played in the right-hand hall. The under 21 squad were very enthusiastic and played many varied shots with skill and accuracy. Hertfordshire’s squad were pushed hard but managed to win three of the four mats. Round two and our thirty-two players all changed mats and another round of eight ends of play began. This round saw the under 21’s win one mat with Hertfordshire managing to hold on to three.
We now went into two sessions of two bowl pairs played over ten ends. Each session saw Hertfordshire take three wins and a draw. Following the pairs matches the afternoon continued with a further two rounds seeing all thirty-two players on the mats again playing two more sets of eight end fours. These last eight matches saw the under 21’s take a further win.
Following a full day of enjoyable bowling the raffle was draw whilst the final scores were calculated.
Brian (Under 21’s Manager) used his own ‘Unique’ scoring method to show that it was in fact a Draw!!.
Hertfordshire congratulated all the under 21 players. They all played well in some closely fought matches. The final score (40 – 8) as calculated by Hertfordshire’s scorer for the day in no way reflected the skill shown by these impressive young bowlers. They played with much enthusiasm and showed they could bowl a wide variety of shots with great accuracy. We can only assume that the England Senior squad will be looking over their shoulders nervously, wondering who will get replaced by some of these talented youngsters.
A wonderful start to the new season.
We are now all looking forward to our first ICC match against Suffolk on the 09th October.
