Youthful Wick Side Perform Well

A young Wick side played very well in defeat to Temple Sheen Eccentrics. The side was made up of 6 Colts – U16s Ralph Talman, James Flint, Vic Griffiths and Alex Morjaria; U15 Tom Dunmore; U13 Jivraj Singh. The colts were supported by more mature cricketers – skipper Tom Simcock, Ben Houghton, Mandeep Singh, Nick Dunmore and Dilan Campbell.

The skipper sensibly negotiated that the Wick side would field first. Talman and Singh jnr opened the attacked and bowled very straight. Talman was rewarded with a wicket as Singh snr held a catch. Next to bowl were Dunmore jnr and Griffiths. Both challenged that batsman and Dunmore jnr was rewarded with 2 wickets; the first bowled and the second held by Dunmore snr low down at slip. Flint and Morjaria took up the attack and pinned the visiting batsman down, but there was no break-though. Slowly the 4^th wicket pair established them selves and then began to attack the varied resources that Simcock employed to bowl. A stand in excess of 100 was accumulated before being broken by the returning Singh jnr. Temple Sheen closed on 206-4 in their allotted 40 overs. The Wick side had bowled well, but dropped catches helped the cause of the batting side.

In reply the Wick side never seriously challenged the total set. Morjaria, Flint, Campbell, Houghton, Talman and Simcock all made double figure scores, but no-one went on to make a half century. Bowled out for 150 in the 37^th over, the colts had all contributed to batting effort.

A special word about Tom Simcock who captained the team superbly; making sure everyone got a game and giving the young players opportunities to express themselves on the field. He also dealt with a tricky incident where an umpire created a difficult situation by challenging a claimed slip catch; enough said.