Middleton in Teesdale Festival Report

Special Correspondent Dave Ralph has provided the following report:

On a wonderful hot, sunny day on June 5th, a young Richmondshire U11s side came a creditable second of five teams in the Middleton-in-Teesdale softball tournament. There was quite literally a picnic atmosphere with an excellent day of junior cricket enjoyed by everyone.

The ten members of our squad each played  in at least three of our four games, and everyone acquitted themselves well. The squad, each of whom received a tournament medal, was Lorcan O'Neill, Alex Pinkney, Andrew Ralph, Henry Banks, Max Dale, Max Percival, Jake Percival, Joseph White, Thomas Wooff and Harry Crossland. The team was widely and generously applauded as they collected their medals after winning three of their four games. Barnard Castle won all four of theirs to be tournament winners.

We began with a convincing 34 run win against the hosts Middleton-in-Teesdale (215 vs 181 net) with a fine bowling and fielding performance that yielded seven wickets (including Joe taking 1 for 1, Jake 1 for 1, Andrew 2 for 1 and a wicket maiden from Max Dale). The bowlers conceded only 4 wide runs in the whole innings- excellent line bowling. Top scorers with the bat were Jake (9) and Joe (7).

Next up came a resounding 84 run win (254 vs 170) against Etherley- though these opponents had played a full match at home in the morning. Again our boys conceded only 4 wide runs, and the best bowling came from Max Dale (2 for 1), Henry (wicket maiden) and Andrew (double-wicket maiden) as we took no fewer than ten wickets in all.  Henry (15), Andrew (8) and Joe (7) helped to pile on our runs.

The third match -against an under-13 Teesdale Girls team- was much tighter, Richmondshire winning by 16 runs in the end. We batted first to net 244 (8 from both Jake and Henry, 7 from Max Dale) but restricted the girls to a net 228 despite some heavy hitting from three of the batters. Excellent fielding won the day with a couple of run-outs, and wickets shared by Andrew, Max Dale, Lorcan and Max Percival.

In the final game however we came up against a very strong Barnard Castle side and went down by 38 runs (246 vs 208 net). The Barnard Castle openers clubbed 21 from the first two overs and we could capture only two wickets (Max Percival 1-3 and Henry 1-4 bowling well to stem the onslaught!).

Andrew top-scored with 7 in the Richmondshire reply.

A great day- and we must extend our thanks to hosts and organisers at Middleton-in-Teesdale.