On Saturday morning the weather forecast looked particularly ominous as we assembled for a 9.30am start in the title decider at home against Gerrards Cross (GX). The GX captain called correctly and won the toss, and chose to field first, as we would also have done given the damp conditions.

James L Henderson was on debut for the U13 A team but had done a great job opening the batting for the B team all season so he opened the batting with Ridhmeet Puri. James had just played a lovely cover drive to the boundary when he was hit on the toe by a swinging yorker next ball and unfortunately had to retire hurt on 5no from 5 balls. We then lost Zac Saul first ball and Oscar Knight couldn't find his fluency scoring 5 from 21 balls. Ridhmeet (41no from 25 balls) played freely though and Amogh Amresh (34no from 25), Neil Chahal (24 from 15), Noa Fonseka (21no from 13) and Jeevan Brar (18no from 16) ensured that there was no let up and powered us to a score of 172/3 from our 20 overs.

GX started in aggressive fashion with their openers scoring 33 from 24 balls and 14 from 14 balls respectively. However, excellent bowling from Neil (2/7 from 3 overs) and Nishesh Parekh (2/21 from 3) dismissed both openers and then the GX numbers 3 and 4 who were their U13 county players. They were assisted by some excellent catching, with Ridhmeet taking a sharp catch behind the stumps, Amogh taking a good catch from a pull at backward square leg and Jeevan taking 2 great catches on the boundary at long on. James suffered another injury flinging himself at a powerfully struck ball trying to take what would have been a stunning catch, and was replaced by Dhiren Rayat, one of our U10s who did a great job fielding. The bowlers then kept the GX batters under control (Noa 1/12 from 3; Oscar 0/24 from 3; Olly Robinson 0/26 from 3; Rafe Alibhai 0/14 from 3; and Amogh 0/8 from 2) to restrict GX to 119/5 from their 20 overs and secure a 53 run win just as the rain started to fall; leading to the adult matches later in the day being abandoned.

It was an excellent all-round performance, particularly with the bat and holding our catches in the field; one of those days that makes Coach Raj very proud of all of the boys.

That is now 13 wins from 13 matches for the U13A team this season; and the 2 wins against GX in the league now mean that we will win the U13 South Premier League and can look forward to the County League final.

The pic is actually from the Slough Nationals game where we qualified for the regional semi-final - too much rain to take a pic after this game!