Braintree’s Under 12’s finally got their season under way as they welcomed a strong Kelvedon side to St. Peters Close.
Having lost the toss and been asked to field, captain Lucas Hale led his team out in front of big crowd with many playing their first ‘proper’ 20 over game – and they enjoyed a great start.
Opening bowlers Hale and Danny Orr extracted bounce and movement from a green looking, early season, pitch with Hale bowling as quickly as anyone on show in the game but it was Corbyn MacLeod who made the breakthrough as he trapped Raaid Adeel in from for 11 to leave the visitors on 23-1. That became 31-2 when Jake Lee took advantage of some confusion between the Kelvedon batsmen and ran out Hudson Burdett for 4 and when Will Sherry foxed Winston Liddell (2) with his quicker ball Braintree were in the ascendancy with Kelvedon 40-3 after 8 overs.
However, Luca Wren had been batting confidently at the other end and was keeping the ship steady and the arrival of Oliver Schofield at the crease signalled a change in momentum. The pair put on 40 in good time with several classy boundaries despite the Braintree’s excellent fielding, Zach Peacock in particular marshalled the cover area superbly making a number of excellent stops and saving his team a good 10-15 runs.
The introduction of George Wedge and Will Gregory to the attack dried the runs up momentarily, with Wedge deservedly picking up the wicket or Wren for a well made 29 but that brought Oscar Butcher to the crease who hit the accelerator immediately. His 36 from 21 balls, which included 5 x 4’s and a brutal 6 over midwicket, alongside the ‘run a ball’ 36 from Schofield, gave Braintree a tough chase of 134 to win.
In order to come out on top Braintree needed a solid start and unfortunately that wasn’t to be as Kelvedon’s bowlers got on top early and never gave Braintree the chance to get ahead of the rate. With very little in the way of loose deliveries to get away just Jake Lee, who top scored for the Dolphins with 7, and George Martin (6) managed to find the boundary as Braintree reached just 51-9.
A heavy defeat but so many positives to take from the bowling and fielding performance against so quality batters and, as always, the spirit in the camp was exemplary until the end. The passion and spirit amongst the players is there for all to see and it will not be long until they get off the mark!