Medbourne (Joel) v Medbourne (Munro) 9.8.11

With Medbourne U15 game being called off yet again by Kibworth we managed to gather 18 players together to have an 18 over game of 9 players a side. The regular U15 players were supported by some of our younger cricketers, 2 overage players and a couple of guests in Charlie Clifford and Leon Nance who never play cricket with Leon showing some great skill in the field. Batting first Munro’s team quickly lost 2 wickets with Jack Rose (4) bowled by Joe Bell and Munro Davies caught and bowled by Will Marriot. An excellent partnership then developed with young Mattie Thompson scoring 17 before being caught by Will off the sometimes wayward Alex Haynes. Adam Dalby hit a brisk 31 before retiring despite being dropped with an absolute sitter by Harry Clarke off Joe Bell when he had only scored 4! Jake Noble was run out for 8 and Will struck twice in the final over clean bowling Max Dalby who had hit a quick 16 and Sam Noble for 4. Munro’s team finished their 18 overs on 105, a good score but with only 9 fielders there would be gaps to exploit. Joel opened the batting with for his team with Charlie who hit some lusty blows before being caught and bowled by Jake for 11. By this time Joel had already hit 30 from 15 balls before retiring and he had given the supposed spin bowling of Jack Rose what it deserved. Jack made amends by catching Harry off Kieran Thompson’s first ball and Leon followed Harry back to the pavilion soon after, clean bowled by Sam. Young Theo Haynes had already begun to show resolute batting and he was then joined by brother, Alex who swung his way to a very quick 32 before retiring with the target score in sight. This brought in elder brother Josh and Theo sportingly retired to let Joe Bell have a bat. Joe hit a quick 10 in one over and Josh reached 7 not out when he hit a four with the first ball of the 16^th over to bring Joel’s team to a winning score of 108. The real winner on this occasion was the game of cricket with players having a lot of fun and spectators being able to enjoy some action that could so easily have been missed. MCC is not like that however and whenever we can we will play cricket and if other teams cancel we will call on our own players to show what they can do.

Medbourne v Badby 3.9.11

Having secured promotion in their penultimate game Medbourne entertained Badby for their final fixture. Asked to field first, some erratic bowling notably from Jack Rose, enabled Badby to race to 63 inside 10 overs before Rose trapped the big hitting Mahoney, (33) lbw. In his next over he claimed the wicket of Wilcox (30) and a mini collapse followed with 3 wickets falling with the score on 79 and 2 more with the score on 84 leaving Badby tottering on 84 for 7. Fin Clarke started the rot by clean bowling Baxter and the introduction of Andy Holyoak proved crucial when he took 2 wickets with his first 2 balls. A hat-trick looked on but it was not to be, however Clarke took 2 more quick wickets. Badby then staged a mini revival largely due to uncharacteristic dropped catches by Medbourne and an excellent innings by Ainsworth (40). Medbourne then upped their game and 3 catches were held by Nigel Clarke, Joel Nance and Toby Williams. Ainsworth was the last wicket to fall leaving 13 year old Kieran Banks on 11 not out and Badby with a final score of 155 from 25 overs. Pick of the bowlers was Andy Holyoak with 4 wickets for 14 runs from his 7 overs. He was well supported by Fin Clarke who took 4 for 84 and Jack Rose who overcame his initial wayward bowling to take 2 for 47. When Medbourne batted they knew that they merely need to bat sensibly to achieve their target and the opening pair looked set until Ollie Barton (9) was well caught on the boundary. Nigel Clarke then joined Joel Nance and they put on 83 for the 2^nd wicket before Nance (38) was clean bowled when he looked set to bat through. 2 quick wickets fell leaving Medbourne on 111 for 4 before Toby Williams (24 not out) joined Clarke (61 not out) to see Medbourne home in the 29^th over. For Badby there was a wicket each for Casey Cooper and Chris Archer and 2 for Martin Wilcox but this was another excellent win for the young Medbourne side.