County Under 11’s excel at Minor Counties Cricket Festival

Pembrokeshire U11s  talented young cricketers finished off their season in style at The Minor Counties Festival at The Royal Hospital School, Suffolk.  The fact that they won two out of their three games was a credit to the whole team, but far more important was the fact that the majority of players achieved their best performances of the season against quality opposition.  Thanks must also go to Luke Ryan and Ben Williams (Neyland) who helped the team out on this tour. The results of the games were as follows:

North Essex  (118 all out)  lost to Pembrokeshire (119 for 9)

Lincolnshire (202 for 7 declared) lost to Pembrokeshire (203 for 8)

Norfolk (165 for 9 declared) beat Pembrokeshire (113 all out)

In the first game, North Essex were put in and  George Williams bowled his usual tight spell with Greg Thompson picking up the first wicket, followed shortly by Jack Parkinson.  However, it was an inspired spell of bowling by Geraint Jones, over his 2 spells, who picked up 5 wickets for 13 runs, albeit nine of them wides.  Other wicket takers were Scott Jones (2), Tomos Lewis and Kurtis Marsh.  The bowlers were aided by some excellent catches, where Luke Ryan took four of them, three in the deep..

For Essex, Captain Matthew Rogers (20), James Hindley (25) and Ben Ellison (18) were the top scorers. 

Steady batting

Facing the main Essex bowlers at both U11’s and U10’s, wickets fell at regular intervals when Pembrokeshire batted.  Jack Parkinson was unlucky to be out hit wicket, playing an excellent hook shot, and with Kurtis Marsh run out by a direct hit, Pembs stood at 22 for 4.  This brought Greg Thompson to the crease, who had his top score of the season (24), where he defended well and hit the bad ball to the boundary extremely hard.  Jacob Knox (9), continued the momentum with Scott Jones (28).  With the return of the opening bowlers, wickets fell and it was left to Tomos Lewis (16 not out) who played some excellent drives through mid-off and the covers in the face of some very quick bowling to secure the victory for Pembrokeshire.

Batting onslaught from big Jack

The second game against Lincolnshire saw some early wickets for Pembrokeshire via Williams and Thompson, however this brought Jack Wilson – 6 ft 4”, size 12 feet to the crease.  He together with Thomas Keast put on 75 runs before Wilson (43) was adjudged lbw to Williams – a vital wicket, however, the Pembrokeshire bowling had no answer to the quality of Keast who stroked the ball to all parts of the ground.  He remained undefeated on 83 when Lincolnshire declared on 202 in the 41st over.  The pick of the bowlers were George Williams and Scott Jones, who picked up two wickets  apiece.

Mammoth run chase ends in success

With 49 overs to bat, this was a mammoth total for Pembrokeshire to chase.  An excellent start by Kurtis Marsh (8 fours) in his 54 being particularly harsh on any leg side bowling, laid a solid foundation together with Geraint Jones, who batted for over an hour for his 10.  Although Pembrokeshire didn’t lose early wickets, they were soon behind the run rate but an excellent partnership of 74 between Philip Llewellyn (27),who pulled and cut well, and Scott Jones (39) with shots all around the ground, brought Pembrokeshire back into contention.

Lincolnshire’s bowling and fielding tightened up with Will Lake and Sam Everson taking two wickets each, however, with important cameos from Tomos Lewis and Ewan Meredith, Pembrokeshire remained in the game.  It was left to Luke Ryan, who hit two fours in the last two balls of the 48th over to secure a memorable victory.  This was by far and away the best game Pembrokeshire had played all season with all the team having important roles to play.

Exciting evening

After the game the banter in the swimming pool was something to be witnessed.  An evening’s entertainment had been arranged by the Pembrokeshire squad with the majority of the team reciting or singing to all the parents. The highlights were the tour song ‘Everywhere we go’, ‘My Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ together with ‘Tom Jones’ alias David Thompson, with his excellent voice and dapper movements – the highlight however being the ‘Carew Rooks’ – Jacob Knox, Tomos Lewis and Jack Parkinson in their matching black t-shirts who had cut a CD and quite rightly received an encore on the evening.  Negotiations are taking place with Bill Marchant for them to appear in the County Dinner, although the fee is a sticking point!

Strong Norfolk side

The third day saw Pembrokeshire take on a very strong, undefeated Norfolk side who had already won the U12’s and U13’s festivals.  Batting first, there were some consistent scores by Norfolk who reached 165 in 44 overs.  Ben Williams had an excellent game taking three wickets, two catches and a run out.  Jacob Knox and Ewan Meredith also had their best spells of bowling for the County.  

When it came to batting, the pace of Lloyd Marshall and the overall strength of the Norfolk team was evident for all to see.  Jack Parkinson, who has come on well at the end of the season, stood up well to the onslaught.  It was only Scott Jones (40 not out),  aided at the end by Geraint Jones and Jacob Knox, who stood firm to the Norfolk attack.

Tomas takes the trophy

The presentations at the end saw Geraint Jones and Kurtis Marsh quite rightly receive awards for their five wickets and 54 runs scored and the unanimous view of the coaches was that Tomos Lewis should receive the trophy for his contributions in all the games. The whole team were a credit not only to themselves, their families, but to Pembrokeshire cricket and PembrokeshireSport.co.uk also says well done to the under 11s team.