On a lovely late summer’s day, the U13 OYCL long format competition came to a conclusion at Langford Cricket Club.
Langford won the toss and chose to bat. Oxford could not have got off to a better start with Dara Bannerman nipping one back through the gate to take a wicket with the very first ball of the match. Hector Gray and Sam Greenslade rebuilt with patience and the occasional piece of brutal hitting; putting on 93 for the second wicket before Marcus Large ended Greenslade’s stay at the crease.
The next wicket was down to a superb catch from Fabian Hurt, diving low to his left to collect a flat catch on the deep square boundary. All this time Hector Gray continued to accumulate runs with hard running and 10 boundaries before he eventually fell for 77 off the bowling of Albert Brown. Stanley Harris and Joshua Periera kept the scoreboard ticking over until Harris was caught off the bowling of Krish Nair with the score on 192. This sparked a mini collapse as Langford were bowled out for 203 – inspired by a spell of 1.2 overs 3-3 from Charles Gall.
As Oxford began their chase there was another wicket in the first over as Sam Greenslade bowled Charlie Gall. Wickets fell at regular intervals, being shared amongst the bowlers. Angus Barnard made a gutsy 17 in difficult conditions, despite copping two blows to the body he battled very hard. 2 wickets a piece to Bonner, Pereira, Harris and Greenslade ended the Oxford run chase after 19 overs with the score on 71.
The game was played in good spirits. Special thanks to the umpires Paul Taylor and Nick Wilks and all scorers from both sides who made the game run smoothly.