Cricket Report – 29 June 2023

It was another very successful weekend for SPS cricket, with our sides winning 7 out of the 9 matches against Reed’s School, including the 1st XI, U15A and U14A matches.

At home in the 1st XI match, the captain K. Patel, just back from Surrey CCC 2nd XI duty, won the toss and chose – somewhat surprisingly – to bowl, but this proved to be the correct decision. We bowled Reed’s out for 197 in 49 overs. A key moment was S. Bhatia bowling Reed’s captain (also a Surrey 2s player) for 37. U14 F. de Mestre bowled well, taking 3-24 in 8 overs. After lunch, our run chase got off to a flying start, with K. Patel making 74. It was then down to A. Patel (30*) and S. Bhatia (29) in the middle order to see us home. Fittingly, the winning runs were scored by A. Rajkumar playing in his last Saturday fixture for the School. At Reeds, the 2nd XI lost while the 3rd XI won. K. Srivastra took 3-25 off 7 overs for the 2nd XI, while M Mehta and C. Perera scored 55 and 38, respectively, for the 3rd XI. The U15As won convincingly by 116 runs, with S Francombe scoring 71, A. Ali 49 and A. Ehathasan taking 3 for 15. The U15Bs also won, while the U15Cs lost. A special note of thanks must go to Miss Warner for standing in her first cricket match!

The U14A also won convincingly, chasing down 223 inside 23 overs. T. Raj scored 84, and K. Somaligam scored 54 not out and took 2 for 28. The U14Bs and U14Cs also both won, with D. Curry making 78 for the Bs and J. Hope taking 5 wickets, T. Bonomini taking 3 wickets, and O. Huges scoring 42 not out for the C. Unfortunately, earlier in the week, the U14As suffered the same fate as the U15As the week before and lost to Harrow in the semi-final of the Middlesex Cup. Despite a very successful season all around, beating Harrow away was – yet again – a step too far.