Shropshire take on Cheshire

Shropshire U12 vs Cheshire U12, Thursday 19th July 2018

To the sages on the boundary, steeped in the knowledge of all things cricket, the number 111 means one thing: Nelson. In the course of doing his bit for king and country the nation’s most celebrated naval hero lost 1 arm, 1 leg, 1 eye. By the twisted logic of superstition for all right thinking English cricketers it follows that 111 is the unluckiest of numbers: Beware the team or player when its, his or her score is 111.

Each member of Shropshire’s Under 12s team recognises such superstition for the poppycock that it is – for starters Nelson didn’t lose a leg. 111 is the score that Jack Home made against Cheshire on the 19th July 2018. This, the handsomest of knocks, was fashioned on a tricky Lilleshall wicket in response to the unrelenting efforts of a high quality bowling unit. Coming to the crease in the third over of the game, Home enjoyed a good stand with Jonathan Bland (26) before a mini-collapse which saw 85 for 1 dip to 89 for 5. One of this redoubtable team’s key strengths is the depth of its batting line up. Home and Josh McDonald (27) steadied the ship and at the close Sam Davis, the local boy, scored a rapid 24. He and hero Home returned to the pavilion together having steered their side to a respectable, if not spectacular, 220 for 6.

Impressively professional, competitive and well trained, the Cheshire openers started with intent and with the score at 55 for no wicket the side line sages were muttering concerns about defending a par total. Their ‘Hearts of Oak’ sons however, had other ideas. With depths of belief belying their years, the Shropshire bowlers stuck at their task and in the end their patience paid off. Cheshire’s top order batsmen truly valued their wickets but with Henry Walker applying pressure with his customary flight, guile and miserliness it was the nagging line and pace of Toby Egerton at the other end which eventually accounted for the first of the openers. In time the other hard fought for wickets came, with Walker, Bland and Davis each playing their part in the winkling exercise.

And then came the Parton and Jenkins show: Quietly piqued at their having - earlier on - been dismissed cheaply and in the most irksome manner, both bowled with fire in their bellies. Whilst Olly Parton picked up two wickets it was William Jenkins – flushed and fuming – who caught the late headlines, taking three wickets and affecting a run out. To all intents and purposes he could claim a hat trick too for though the batsman did not walk and the umpire did not raise his finger, all knew that the ball had been hit and the catch taken. Whilst this mishap denied Jenko his hat trick and a richly deserved ‘five for’, in the context of the match it mattered not for Cheshire’s main mast was in splinters, the hull holed and they were sinking fast. The tenth wicket was taken with the penultimate ball of the final over.

Shropshire won by 22 runs. This, the best of games was competitive and played in the right spirit. It turned out that it was Shropshire’s depth - in both the batting as well as the bowling departments - which proved the difference.