Gloucestershire U15s v Devon U15s Frocester CC Sunday 5th June 2016 ECB CC
Early start, glorious sun shine then heavy cloud/ fog and drizzle until north of Bristol when the sun came out again and boy didn’t it warm up after lunch! Over taken by hooligans on the M5 but for once good old satnav caught them up in Eastington!
Frocester CC was looking very picturesque and Eric Woodmason had done a splendid job preparing the pitch and then greeting us. Interestingly the warm up was not of its usual intensity, whether it was the early start, journey, weather and / or the late withdrawal of Bob and Deggy due to injury, who knows, but the lads no matter what we said were just not on the button! We decided to bat and won the toss – given their warm up this could go one of two ways.
Sam Carpenter who has been in good form this season was eager to open with James Doble and after a cautious start against pace and spin, they put on 64 in 16 overs against fairly tight Gloucestershire bowling before Carps committed hari-kari hitting the ball into the covers and calling a run when I doubt there was one to take. So disappointing given he was batting so well and in control of things. You CAN play spin! That brought Ben Sapiecha to the crease and 3 overs later he didn’t play with a straight bat and played on to Gunn, who was probably Gloucestershire most impressive seamer. Shortly afterwards James Doble played across the line to Gunn and was LBW. What have we been saying and practising all winter?? 87-3 off 23. James Onley-Gregson miss read a googly and was caught behind; Max Mejzner was caught behind too and Byron Knowles never got going and was caught in the covers. 64 -0 had inside 12 overs become 100-5. Remember our batting goals- when was the last time you read them? I had better send them out again!
Sam Taylor and Jonty Walliker went about rebuilding before Sam played and usual shot and gave wide mid on catching practice122-7; Elliott Adams and Jonty continued the recovery when Jonty was run out of all things in the 44th over, 152-8; Kersley and Elliott batted another 5 overs and then Kersley was caught going for this shots and Sam Woodcock and Elliott batted through the 50 overs. Somehow we had got to 174-9 off our 50 overs but we should have comfortably score 250+!
Tea a talk and we knew on this pitch we had to bowl straight, no leg or off side wides, take the pace off the ball as it was not so easy to then score and field out of our skins. It was never going to be easy though as Gloucestershire knew what they had to chase and did not have to take risks whereas if we had scored that 250+ it would have been completely different.
Kersley and Sam Carpenter opened and up until the 5th over all was going well and then in the 6th and 8th overs we had bad overs – did heads immediately started to drop?! Jonty and James O-G came on and Jonty induced a wicket with a full toss caught Woody but unfortunately JOG could not find his length and Patterson and Pearce took full advantage. He did however get Patterson to miss hit and Elliott took a fantastic catch over his head falling at square leg- brilliant Els! Woody replaced JOG and bowled Pearce in his first over 84-3 in the 16th over and drinks. If we could only take a couple of more quick wickets now? Matty Brewer and Jacob Reeves went about rebuilding, did we really pressurise them by fielding well and bowling dot balls/ maidens, and gradually the score began to mount before Brewer was run out by a sharp piece of fielding by Max. Woody took the wicket of Reeves caught Byron but Gloucestershire were in the driving seat and came home with 11 overs to spare.
We had a long mostly open and honest debrief afterwards and it was good two players contacted us before we had got home to talk further. Team cohesion, social and task are critical as are role clarity and acceptance; these will lead to more TEAM spirit and trust which will all lead to better individual and TEAM performances.
If you cannot talk in front of the others and don’t get your parents to speak, ring or email me, pick the phone up - come on your are young men! You are much better and can play much better than you are at the moment - you did it last season, in Cornwall last week and you CAN do it again! Think quietly about your individual previous performances and that of the TEAM. Write them down; read them several times a day; start to believe in yourself and the TEAM - YOU CAN DO IT!
Nick and I have shown our trust and belief in you by selecting you but at the end of the day, we can now only listen and try and help you as much as we can. Ultimately it is down to you to come to the party, work on aspects of your game technically, tactically, physically and mentally and by doing so be more confident and be part of the TEAM.
Finally from our conversations I am also not sure how much playing out of age group and/ or for your clubs 1st team is actually helping some of you at the moment but that is not my decision but yours. Some of you can cope; others it would appear are struggling. We will have a get togther on the 19th - I’ll let you know where and when.
Thank you the umpires, Wendy for scoring, Frocester CC, the tea ladies and Eric for all you did.
