Himley’s all conquering Under 10 Pairs team added the North Worcestershire trophy to their growing collection of silverware by winning the inaugural finals day hosted by ourselves on Sunday 5^th July.

The top four teams in the league qualified for two semi-finals, and we drew Old Hill on our favourite second ground. Callum Lea won the toss and took the positive decision to bat first. Openers Billy Cox and Sam Storer recovered from the loss of Billy’s wicket in the first over, to post 35 in their four overs. Billy played with his usual fluency scoring a net 21 (see later) with Sam offering his customary excellent support. Wicket keeper Ben (Gilchrist) Jones and Zak Smith carried on the good work with some excellent shots on a really good wicket, taking the score to 66-1 after 8 overs. The recently formed, but blossoming partnership of Jacob Smith and Ben Oswald played very sensibly, and it was left to Callum Lea (20) and the ever reliable Ben Gainham to see us through to 122-1 after 16 overs. Each team starts on 200, losing 5 runs for every wicket, giving us a net score of 317, a daunting target at under 10 level.

Our real strength is in our bowling, where we give away very few extras and take wickets at regular intervals. All the bowlers took at least one wicket, with Billy having figures of 2-0 off 2 overs. Old Hill never threatened our score, ending up on 267-9, a net score of 222 and a win by 95 runs.

Due to the umpires being anxious to get home to their Sunday lunch, we had a very quick turn round for the final against Oldswinford. Billy took over the captaincy and Arjun Uppal and Chad Brandrick made the short journey from Wombourne, where they had been helping the under 9 team qualify for their final, to take their place in the team for the final. Again we won the toss and again lost a wicket in the first over. However, Billy and Zak ignored the loss of 2 more wickets to keep playing their shots, ending up on 39-3 after their 4 overs. Ben Oswald and Jacob kept up the good work and Ben Jones powered 20 not out in a new partnership with Chad, who ran well to keep Ben on strike. Our usual anchor pair of Callum and Arjun ran brilliantly against some good bowling, taking us to 318-4, a net score of 298, and just 2 runs less than our target and a very good score. Oldswinford started well, with the first pair scoring 14-0, but the pressure of our bowling and fielding began to have an effect. Callum took 3-19 off 3 overs of leg spin, and Billy sealed the man of the match award with 1-14 off 3 overs. Oldswinford finished on 262-7, a net score of 227 and a win for Himley by an emphatic 71 runs.

Billy and Callum collected the trophy together, and all 10 lads who played deserve a great deal of credit for the way they have played and bonded throughout the season.

For all their success, the under 10 As are not my youth team of the year so far. That distinction goes to the under 10 Bs run by Steve Jacobs and Gordon Lewis. To say they were struggling at the start of the year would be an understatement, suffering losses by over 100 runs. However, due to a combination of hard work and sound tactical planning by the coaches, they began to compete with other clubs’ A teams, winning a number of games and suffering some very narrow defeats. The B team had a semi-final in the North Worcs plate on Thursday evening against Wombourne, and if successful will play the final at home on the second ground on Sunday 26^th July. Why not give them some support whilst watching the 20-20 on the main ground?

The A team also won their group in defence of the Worcestershire County trophy, and travel to Barnards Green in their semi-final this Sunday.