Richmond U11s win NYACC North/South play-off

Richmond U11 v Saltburn U11

Richmond U11 ended a long but successful season with a trip to Saltburn CC.  Having won the NYACC north league they had to travel to the winners of the south section for the league play off game.

Saltburn won the toss and asked Richmond to bat first and Sam Winter and Johnny Carr got Richmond off to a good start contributing 28 runs from the opening four overs.  After a decent start the next pair James Kelly and Ryan Goldsmith lost two wickets to cancel out the runs they had scored.  However Jonathan Carlton and George Spink got the scoreboard moving and as with Richmond's first pair they added 28 runs, with Johnny Carlton saving his best performance of the season to the final game with some great shots in his 15 runs.  The last pair Matthew Price and Toby Newton also lost two wickets, with the unfortunate Toby falling foul of the first LBW decision of the season.  Richmond ended up with a very creditable 294 runs which when the four wickets were deducted left a net score of 262 runs, probably about par for a ground with a fast outfield.

Saltburn got of to a steady if unspectacular start against some decent Richmond bowling.  At the halfway stage of 8 overs they had progressed to 224 runs and had not lost a wicket meaning a good game was on the cards.  At this stage, unbelievably for this season, the sun intervened.  With batsmen struggling to see at one end the umpires decided to bowl all the overs from the other end.  Unfortunately for Richmond this meant all the bowlers had to come up the hill into the wind and they themselves struggled to see with the ever lowering sun. The third pair of Saltburn started to hit a few big shots and found the boundary on 3 occasions and were only curtailed with a wicket from Matty Price.  When the last pair arrived at the crease 27 runs were needed by Saltburn from the final 4 overs and they had obviously left their two best batsmen till last.  They scored steadily and when the last over arrived they needed 7 to tie and 8 to win.  Sam Winter bowled the final over and after a leg bye off the first ball Sam struck what seemed to be the decisive blow by bowling the Saltburn batsman.  This meant suddenly Saltburn's task was 15 runs off 4 balls, but Sam ran up and bowled a wide.  This reduced the target to 13 runs still from 4 balls and when the next ball was stroked confidently it needed a great stop by Johnny Carr to prevent a certain boundary and a single was run.  The next ball was hit for four and suddenly the ask was 8 from 2 balls and when another single was achieved it was 6 to tie off the last ball.  The ball was struck confidently however never in danger of going for 6 and the batsmen were run out attempting an impossible third run.  This meant Saltburn finished on 274 runs for the loss of 3 wickets, giving a final net score of 250 runs and a victory to Richmond by 12 runs.

Another top effort from the Richmond U11s in what turned out to be a fantastic game of junior cricket which went down to the last ball.  For their efforts Richmond collected two trophies from the league chairman, a brilliant achievement for a talented group of young cricketers.