And so the final game of the indoor season arrived for Beckenham U12 – a game that would decide who finished runner-up behind the Bromley side who have remained unbeaten all season. Captain Harrison lost the toss and Chislehurst opted to bat, but some excellent bowling from Ellie (2 overs, 1 wicket, 9 runs), Krishan-Raj (2 overs, 2 wickets, 12 runs) and at the death Henry (2 overs, 1 wicket, 6 runs) restricted Chislehurst to 94-5 from their 12 overs, a total Beckenham had only failed to reach once in our previous 9 innings.

The vocal army of Chislehurst’s parent umpires calling for wides and no balls every delivery in the Chislehurst innings seemed to think the game was in the balance through Beckenham’s batting, but in truth the innings was very well negotiated and the result rarely looked in doubt. Henry reached yet another declaration with 23 from 18 balls, including driving his first ball for a beautiful six. His opening partner Ady played a superb anchoring role, batting almost all the way through the innings for 21 from 23 balls. After Harrison unluckily chopped on to his stumps, Benedict played an equally sensible and unusually restrained innings, exactly what the game needed.

Three overs out, Beckenham needed 27 runs. Ady, on 11 from his first 21 deliveries timed the acceleration perfectly, hitting 6 then 4 from consecutive deliveries to reach his declaration. 8 runs followed from the rest of the over, and the game was finished 4 balls later by Jamie, who hit his first legal delivery (after facing 4 wides for his first 4 balls!) for an easy 3.

This was yet another excellent team performance. Tight fielding, and attacking bowling, with lots of “chirping” throughout (it makes it so difficult for the opposition when the fielding team are so loud and supportive of each other, an atmosphere Beckenham have created all season), and some very mature batting.

Overall, it has been an excellent indoor season with some top-notch performances both individually and as a team, and Beckenham can rightly consider themselves unlucky that the fixture that ultimately decided the title saw Bromley able to field a full strength side whilst Beckenham had 5 of their top 7 players unavailable.

Man of the match goes to Henry Lodder for a great all-round performance, but congratulations to everyone involved today.