Lessons Learned as U11s Lose to Horsford

GREAT MELTON U11s lost to HORSFORD U11s by 4 runs at Melton Park in the Terry Moore Trophy

The U11s lost narrowly to Horsford in the Terry Moore Trophy and learned a harsh lesson.  A failure to chase down a total of just 40 in 16 overs was the result of too many wickets being lost – 6 in all.  Five were the result of trying to hit across the line while the other was a silly run-out so, even though Melton's young side scored more runs than their opponents, the fact that they lost 3 more wickets, cost them the game.

Earlier Melton had bowled and fielded well to restrict the visitors to 255-3.  Oliver Black was the most impressive of the bowlers with figures of 2-0-6-2 but Will Singleton only conceded 3 runs in his two overs while Michael Baker (2-0-7-0), Matt Carter (2-1-7-0) and James Carter (2-0-8-0) were similarly economical.  Finlay Hughes (3-0-11-1) got the other wicket thanks to an excellent catch by Matt Carter while Kai Wilkinson-Loines did very well on his debut as wicket-keeper.

Despite some excellent shots from Hughes in his 14 not out, Matt Carter was bowled twice and, with Black, also dismissed Melton were struggling at 220-3 at the halfway stage, effectively still 25 runs behind.  Another wicket conceded by Melton's third pair was compensated for by the addition of 25 runs – most of them coming from wides – leaving last pair Singleton and skipper Pat Walton needing to score 16 to win off the last 4 overs.  Walton managed 10 and Singleton 7 but a wild swing at a straight ball and a farcical run-out meant Melton came up 4 runs short.  Credit to Horsford's bowlers, though, particularly Ethan who took 2-12.

With some of Melton's stronger batsmen unavailable for this match it gave a few more of the squad members a chance to play and many of them did well but they will need to learn to protect their wicket and play straighter.

Steve Phoenix