Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club Boys U15A v Watford Town U15 on Mon 12 Jul 2021 at 18:00
St Albans Cricket Club Won by 40 runs

Match report
Match report for St Albans U15 vs Watford Town, Monday 12 July at Verulam Playing Fields

The atrocious weather of the last couple of months resulting in the cancellation of many league fixtures and the refusal of the league committee to extend the season has seen the U15's have a limited amount of cricket. As such, we have tried to organise some friendlies against local clubs to allow this improving squad to develop further.

On Monday 12 July members of the U15 squad played Watford Town on the astro pitch at Verulam playing fields. The increasing self isolation requirements impacted both teams and under a heavy and threatening sky the toss was won by skipper Oliver Ives for St Albans. A sign of the increasing confidence running through the squad they decided to bat and attempt to pile pressure on the opposition.

Jamie Speller (20) and Josh Kleiner-Mann (13) opened the batting and began steadily to build a score being watchful but displaying an excellent sense of communication to run quick singles and turn 1's into 2's. The lush outfield was preventing many opportunities for 4 but also playing havoc with the opposition in the field who thought the ball would reach the boundary. With 35 on the board Josh fell to an excellent run out and Jamie perished next ball to an inswinger to allow Watford back into the game.

Their departure brought the inform Rhys Barham (30) to the crease alongside the reliable Lucas Berry (16). Lucas was not at his free flowing best but provided support for Rhys who was hitting the ball to all parts of the ground. They put their foot on the accelerator until Rhys fell looking to reach the boundary again. Nathan Kleiner Mann (21) carried on the charge with some magnificent lofts over mid off and mid on. Lucas fell to a good ball and his replacement Oliver Brown sacrificed his wicket attempting to heave his second ball over the mid wicket boundary. The last couple of overs saw Sri Yendapally join Nathan. Sri maufactured a couple of fours behind square and finished off the innings well.

The boys posted a competitive 136 considering the length of the outfield and the strength of our bowling line up. After a debrief at half time to remind the boys that this was a friendly and everyone needs to get a game, they took to the outfield with the dark cloud looming larger.

Abishek Roy-Choudhury opened with a tidy 2 over spell picking up a wicket. At the over end Dhariya Dave ran in with his left arm over, a little more wayward than normal but claimed a scalp. They were replaced by Sri and Oliver Ives with the former picking up a further wicket. To increase our strangle hold on the game Nathan and Lucas took the ball and despite not taking a wicket kept the opposition run rate down.

There were a couple of disastrous run outs for Watford, an excellent pick up and throw down by one of the Kleiner Manns and the unfortunate sight of 2 Watford players at one end whilst WK Speller removed the bails at the other. Unfortunately the departing batsman had not even faced a ball and trudged off the field. With Watford 5 down and well off the pace the skipper turned to part time bowlers of Oliver Brown and Rhys Barham along with an over of spin from Josh. The former making up for his time with the bat to take 2 wickets and recording excellent figures.

However, the extras were beginning to pile up. Despite Speller performing well behind the stumps ( 2 catches and a stumping) and not allowing any byes he was unable to prevent the plethora of wides being delivered by the majority of the bowlers. Before the end of the twenty overs the sparse but dedicated crowd clapped Mr Extras as he reached his half century....

With St Albans home and dry it remained for the game to be played out and St Albans secure a 40 run win. Watford Town were a pleasure to play against and the game was played in the right spirit. St Albans have to work on their wides but all round a good performance. After the weather of the last 2 months we were lucky to escape the rain and ecstatic that we were able to get all the overs in. The players returned to their parents' cars and the boundary markers were hastily collected as the dark cloud, now resembling Lord Voldermort's mark, finally swept across the ground.

We go again against Old Albanians on Monday 19 July and a boys vs parents game on 21 July. Both games are at Clarence Park.

St Albans Cricket Club Boys U15A Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 25w 3lb 
for 5 wickets
30
136		        
Joshua Kleiner-Mann Run out  13 32 25 1 52.00 2
Rhys Barham Caught  30 18 27 4 1 111.11
Jamie Speller Bowled  20 33 27 1 74.07 2 1
Lucas Berry Bowled  16 29 19 1 84.21
Nathan Kleiner-Mann Not Out  21 21 21 1 1 100
Oliver Brown Caught  0 2 0
Oliver Ives  
Sri Harshith Yendapally   1
Jacob Dell  
Dhairya Dave  
Abhishek Roy-Choudhury   1

Watford Town U15 Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Watford Town U15 Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 48w 1lb 
for 8 wickets
51
96 (0.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

St Albans Cricket Club Boys U15A Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Abhishek Roy-Choudhury3.00919.003.00
Dhairya Dave2.0014114.007.00
Sri Harshith Yendapally3.00818.002.67
Oliver Ives3.001500.005.00
Nathan Kleiner-Mann2.001200.006.00
Lucas Berry2.001000.005.00
Rhys Barham2.001200.006.00
Oliver Brown2.00723.503.50
Joshua Kleiner-Mann1.00818.008.00