Rayleigh: 273 for 6, net 243
Rayleigh won by 4 runs
Team: Joe Peppiatt, Jordan Jacobs, James Buckley, Alex Dawkins, Harry Donoghue, Adam Fitzgerald, Adam Bailey, Sam Caton, Callum Bond, Liam Harrold
How ironic that after losing the first game of the season on the last ball of the match, we won the last game of the season in exactly the same way, thanks to some sensible and dramatic batting at the end from Harry and Alex.
Benfleet won the toss and elected to bat first. Rayleigh bowled well throughout and collected 8 Benfleet wickets. That gave us a season tally of 67 wickets which meant we finished as the leading wicket takers in the ‘B’ division, a tremendous achievement.
The highlight of this performance though, had to be the fielding. A catch each from Sam, Harry and Alex added to three run-outs, two direct hits, one from Alex at fine leg and one from Adam B, in only his second game, at backward point (with only one stump to aim at) set up this win.
As Rayleigh went into bat we had a net target of 240 to win. In truth we made it hard for ourselves with the loss of early wickets and not defending the straight ball.
However the lads down the order rallied, and when last pair Harry and Alex came to the crease we were nine behind on net score with four overs left. Sensible batting nudged the net score ahead, before Alex unluckily defended a straight ball only to watch in horror as it trickled back onto the stump and dislodged a single bail.
Benfleet were now one run ahead with the last over to come. Harry took strike and couldn’t get the ball away. On the second from last ball, Alex galloped like a gazelle to run a bye and level the net scores. Then, on the final delivery young Mr D guided the ball to the square leg boundary for four and Rayleigh had won the game in the most dramatic fashion.
The win, and a surprise loss by Wickford away to Leigh, means that Rayleigh finish in second place in the league having won seven and lost three games. Our total of 24 points was just two behind eventual champions SOSEMT. Good luck to SOSEMT, but a truly fantastic achievement by the Rayleigh u11B team to finish second, considering it was the first season of hard ball cricket for many of these lads.
I am very proud of them and I hope they are proud of themselves.
Everyone played a part in our achievement and added to the team names at the top of this report I’d also like to thank the rest of the squad for their efforts: Callum B, Jamie C, Harry M, Cameron M, Craig S, David W, Jess W.