Inter Cricket County finals success for Merchant Taylors School
20 May 2013
Having won the Merseyside section of the Lancashire indoor cricket competition last term eight boys from Years 7 and 8 travelled to Manchester to play in the finals on Tuesday 23rd April. This form of the game is fast and furious, with each match comprising eight overs per team and a variety of scoring methods depending on which walls are hit and how often the batsmen run between the wickets. No balls or wides trigger free hits, batters have to retire after reaching 25, and the last man stands.
Merchants opened up with good wins against Rainford High and Ormskirk Grammar. The third match against RGS Lancaster looked likely to be the deciding game and we really played well to restrict their score to 67 and then chase it down with an over to spare. All that seemed necessary after this was to beat QEGS Blackburn and Wellacre. In the Blackburn game, however, we allowed them to score 85 with some very careless bowling and although we batted very well we fell four runs short. This threw the competition wide open again and meant that we had to win our last game and get as many wickets as possible. We won this match very easily and bowled our opponents out. We ended up with the same points as RGS Lancaster but won the competition by having taken more wickets in all matches added together. Much of the credit for this must go to George Lavelle whose wicket-keeping was absolutely outstanding. Almost half the 34 wickets we took were stumpings by George. Our two spinners, Kunal Mahambrey and Ehren Agarwal also bowled brilliantly and all the batsmen played with confidence and aggression. George Lavelle reached the retiring score of 25 in all but one match, Kunal Mahambrey showed a calm temperament throughout and Tom Barker and Ehren Agarwal batted very well in tight pressurised situations. The supporting players, Arav Soin, Adam Weston, Alex Thorpe and Nathan Lyon all played their part and took catches or scored vital runs when called upon.
Congratulations to all the boys for superb way in which they represented the school and Merseyside in this competition.