Steventon Girls Under-15s 49 (14.4 ovs; Alex Knight 3-4, Tegan Allum 3-6)
Moreton Girls Under-15s 127-2 (18 ovs; Bethan Lewis 25*, Lucy Johnson 20*)
Moreton won by 6 wickets (with 8.5 overs remaining)
Warborough & Shillingford Boys Under-13s 63-9 (100 balls; Fabian McElwaine-Johnn 11, Phoebe Oldfield 2-2)
Moreton Girls Under-15s 66-7 (74 balls; Conor Rogan 16*, Niamh Rogan 15, Louis Bolton 3-5)
Moreton won by 3 wickets (with 26 balls remaining)
Moreton opened their annual Cricket & Beer Festival on Thursday evening with an inaugural Hundred match between Moreton Girls Under-15s and Warborough & Shillingford Boys Under-13s.
Once the finer points of the law-changes had been explained to the two sides, and with scoreboard tweaked and software updated to support the Hundred format, Moreton took to the field and stepped into the unknown. The home side got off to the best possible start when excellent work by Phoebe Oldfield at square-leg resulted in Logan Rainbow being run out at the non-striker’s end from the very first ball of the match. The Warborough innings struggled to ignite as Moreton continued to bowl and field with energy and enthusiasm. Oldfield maintained her fantastic start to the evening by delivering Moreton’s first wicket-maiden in this format, on her way to returning figures of 2 for 2 from 15 balls; and six other bowlers chipped in with a wicket a piece as the visitors stumbled to 63 for 9 from their 100 allotted balls.
Moreton also lost a wicket to the first ball of their innings, as Lucy Johnson was adjudged leg-before wicket to Louis Bolton (3 for 5). Bethan Lewis produced a couple of lusty blows, before she was left short of her crease by Wilf Quinn’s direct hit with one stump to aim at; and, when Quinn followed up this feat three balls later by catching Oldfield off the bowling of Aiden Eltham, Moreton had lost half their side and were still 36 runs short of victory. Batting with immense maturity and much courage, Niamh Rogan – by far the youngest member of the Moreton Girls squad – first absorbed the pressure of the batting collapse, before then unfurling a range of classical drives and clips to rest back the initiative and leave Moreton on the brink of victory. It was left to older brother Conor (answering a last-minute call to arms) to see Moreton over the line with 26 balls remaining.
The full scorecard from last evening – in Hundred style – can be found here: