Another tough test for the U13 A team, this time away against a good Sidcup side.

Part of the test was getting there for a 5pm meet on a Monday, so a big thanks to all our players and families for making sure we could get started pretty much on time.

Sanjay won the toss and opted to bowl, and on a hard-baked pitch, it was soon clear that Sidcup had some decent batters in their line-up. Solid opening spells from Ted and Sanjay failed to open the door, and Evie was very unlucky that some fiery bounce didn’t lead to at least one catch. Marcus, Denith, Krish and Myles all bowled some good deliveries, but Sidcup seemed to find the boundary at least once an over, and ran aggressively to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

In the end, the top three batters retired having passed the 25 -mark, and Sidcup ended their 20 overs at 148-0. So no wickets for Beckenham, but that didn’t totally reflect some good deliveries, and some brave fielding from Denith and Myles in particular. Dillon was also excellent behind the stumps, despite the high bounce.

Beckenham started their innings in good fashion, with Sanjay and Denith starting on the front foot, pinching the singles. But a mix-up led to the skipper being run out, and Denith followed shortly afterwards to a sharp catch. Evie and Ted started to rebuild, but both were cleaned up by the first change bowler. With our middle order falling quickly to some very straight bowling, Beckenham were staring down the barrel of a heavy defeat at 49-7.

Marcus and Sam then composed themselves and put together a stand of 26 based on quick running and punishing the bad balls. When Marcus fell to another catch, another U13s As debutant KK continued to play a good supporting role, that included a cracking straight driven 4 over the bowler’s head. Sam continued to play his shots and scamper the ones, and was joined by George (making his first appearance for Beckenham) who opened his account with 2 not out.

In the end, Beckenham fell short at 114-9, but had showed a lot of heart to get as close to the Sidcup target as they did, given where they were at the halfway stage. Sam finished unbeaten on 28 and hopefully that will give him the confidence boost he needs to make this his best season with the bat.

In summary, all the new players applied themselves well and never lost focus in the field. Sidcup had some good players, but the big lesson we can take from this game is to improve the accuracy of the bowling. We were a bit short of length on a bouncing pitch, but we conceded 31 runs in wides, which we cannot continue to do if we want to compete at this level against some very decent teams.

My one recommendation to all the players for training this week (and beyond). Treat every training/net session as an opportunity to improve the consistency of your bowling. I see so many of the players in the nets bowling spin or bouncers, or doing a different run-up for each delivery. Do the same run-up that you do in matches for every practice delivery, and try and hit the same line each time. If you’re drifting down leg or falling short, the coaches are there to help, and hopefully we’ll start to get that consistency we need in the coming games.

We’ll go again next week.