Hard to believe but the season for our younger junior teams from Under 9 to Under 15 is now over, here is the review of the games following our mid season review in June - see blog https://benwellhill.co.uk/blog/junior-teams-round-up-18th-june
Under 15’s NJCL update
The under 15 season in the Monday night NJCL gained momentum in the second half with five successive wins taking us rapidly up the League before the last two games were affected by rain to leave us in second place at the end of the season behind a strong South North side.
Warren Poxon scored his first 50 for the Hill at Bates Cottages on 20th June as a very young side held their nerve to win a close game by 7 runs.11 year old Harsh Patel was the pick of the bowlers with 3 for 6.
Newcastle were restricted to 107/2 in their 20 overs on 27th June by some excellent Hill bowling before Freddie McGregor continued his excellent form with an unbeaten 51 and Warren Poxon with 31 led the Hill to victory.
Ashington came to the Hill on 4th July in good form but were restricted to 111/7 in 20 overs with 13 year old Ben Robinson leading the way with 3 for 8. In a tense reply, the game was in the balance before Freddie saw the Hill home to a 5 wicket win with 48 not out in partnership with Fergus Wallace who was unbeaten on 15. Warren also scored 26.
An impressive batting display at Tynedale on 11th July saw the Hill rattle up 171/2, led by another 50 from Warren, 39 from Freddie, 37 from Rory Mustard and 25 from 10 balls from captain Abu Siddique. Tynedale reached 140/4 in reply, Jayam Patel the pick of the bowlers with 2 for 21.
Our final home game at home to Backworth followed on 18th July. Bowling first on an extremely hot night, we restricted our visitors to 118 in 20 overs before Freddie blasted an unbeaten 50 with Abu weighing in with 41 to seal a 7 wicket win.
Following a cancelled game at Stocksfield because of heavy rain, our final game at Tynemouth on 1st August did not get finished because of a torrential downpour with the Hill in a good position to win. The highlight was a first Hill 50 for 13 year old Rory Mustard, well supported by Freddie with 28 and 26 from Subhan Shahzad.
Under 15’s NJCL July scorecards are available here
Under 15’s NEPL update
Following their win over Lanchester back in April, the under 15s qualified for the semi finals of the NEPL competition and a trip down to Tynemouth on August 4th.
After winning the toss and batting first, openers Freddie McGregor and Warren Poxon put on 187 for the first wicket as Freddie reached his first 100 from 86 balls before having to retire, a fantastic effort.
Warren unfortunately fell for 91 then Rory Mustard added 26 as the Hill reached 283/3 in 40 overs.
Warren then capped a fine match by taking the first four Tynemouth wickets, all clean bowled, as the home side were bowled out for 161, despite an excellent 100 from Joel Hull Denholm. Ben Robinson also took two wickets as the Hill won by 122 runs to qualify for the final.
The NEPL final took place at South North on August 11th. The home side batted first and scored 237/4 in 40 overs. In extremely hot conditions, and despite missing some key players, the bowlers battled hard, Ellie Foggan took two of the wickets to fall.
In reply, the Hill lost regular wickets, but captain Freddie McGregor stood firm and scored his second 100 in a week before having to retire. It was a magnificent effort once again from Freddie, showing once again the massive progress he has made this year. The Hill were all out for 161 losing by 76 runs, but this was no disgrace against an impressive South North side and we put up a spirited defence of the title won in 2021.
Under 15’s NEPL August scorecards are available here
Under 13’s update
In mid June we sat proudly top of the table with a 100% winning record, and whilst we didn’t maintain our unbeaten run in the league in the second half of the season, other results went our way which meant we won the Under 13 Northumberland Junior Cricket League for the first time in the clubs history. Congratulations to everyone in the team, with all the players making contributions throughout the season.
Sunday 19th June – U13 v Newcastle (h) – Won by 21 runs
Another game where we batted first and posted an impressive score. 30s (all retired) from Gabriel Mellor and Rory Mustard, and 27 from Fergus Wallace, saw us score 135 for 7 in 20 overs. Newcastle scored 114 for 7 in reply, with 2 wickets for Harsh Patel, and 1 each for Ellie Foggan, Ibrahim Ahmed, Liam Hynd and Gabriel Mellor.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5307490
Sunday 26th June – U13 v South North Red (a) – Lost by 48 runs
Our unbeaten run in the league game to an end against South North. For the first time we had to chase a total, with South North scoring an impressive 136 for 7 off their 20 overs. It could have been a lot worse as they were 112 for 0 after 15 overs (2 retirements), but late wickets, 3 each for Aaron Armstrong and Ben Robinson and 1 for Liam Hynd, restricted the hosts to just 24 runs in the last 5 overs. Despite an excellent 30 (retired) from Subhan Shahzad, we lost wickets regularly and struggled to keep up the rate required, we eventually finished 88 all out.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5307523
Sunday 3rd July – U13 v Ponteland (h) – Won by 8 wickets
We returned to winning ways with an emphatic win over Ponteland. Ponteland won the toss and elected to bat but were bowled out for only 54. 2 wickets each for Ben Robinson, Harsh Patel, Liam Hynd, 1 each for Ellie Foggan, Seb Fletcher-Woods, Rory Mustard and Fergus Wallace. After the early loss of Subhan and Gabriel, Rory took control smashing a quick fire 30 (retired) as we chased down the total in the 8th over.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5307539
Sunday 10th July – U13 v Stocksfield (h) – Lost by 6 wickets
This was a cracking game where we felt the pressure of knowing a victory would seal the league title. In the end we went down to a last over defeat, but it was a game where the team probably learned more in defeat than they did in some of the earlier season victories, and it finished with a happy ending.
We batted first and didn’t have our usual top order dominance with the bat, due to some excellent bowling and fielding from the visitors. Aaron Armstrong top scored with 23, Gabriel Mellor scoring 20 and Ben Robinson 18, the main contributors as we posted 105 for 6 in 20 overs. At half way Stocksfield were 36 for 1, but some strong middle order batting saw them needing 19 from the final 3 overs. They eventually prevailed with 3 balls to spare in a tight finish. There were wickets for Fergus (2), Ben and Aaron (1 each). As the team trooped off the thoughts were that we had probably blown the league but a victory for South North over Tynemouth (who needed to win to overhaul us), meant we had sneaked the title by 2 points, with a record of played 9 (won 7, lost 2), South North were runners up with played 9 (won 7, 1 abandoned and 1 cancelled) with Tynemouth 3rd with a record of played 9 (won 6, lost 3).
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5307549
The rest of the season saw us play 5 friendlies, 2 in 100 (The Hundred) rules format and 3 back to normal 20 over cricket. We blooded some of the Under 11s (Seb Fletcher-Woods, Harsh Patel) and mixed the team to give some of the other lads (Jesse Ladd, Ramin Aatif, Daniel Warkman) a chance. We lost to Tynemouth but beat South North in the 100 games (30’s for Subhan and Fergus), and we finished the season in good style with wins over Backworth (30’s for Ellie and Rory), Tynedale and Newcastle. In the final game it was quite fitting that top run scorer Rory Mustard posted his top score with a rare 50 at U13 level. He was allowed to bat again after earlier retiring with 30, given the fact we would have been all out otherwise.
An excellent season capped with silverware!!
Under 11’s update
We played four games in July with three wins and one defeat. Some of the u9 players have had a chance to experience u11 cricket with a number of players being away on holiday and although it is a big step up they have all contributed really well to some good team performances:
- a great all round performance by Daniel who picked up 2 wickets opening the bowling and then scored 15 runs in the final pair to lead us to a 12 run victory against Ponteland. There was also some good hitting from Vihaan who top scored with 17 runs. Ponteland scored 269 for 6 (net 239) and we scored 281 for 6 (net 251)
- we had a comprehensive win against Tynedale where we took 16 wickets with Seb, Freddie, Sukhveer, Tommy and Harshil each picked up 2 wickets. Highlight was a stunning one handed catch by Freddie who seemed as surprised as anyone to have taken a one handed reflex catch in the covers! We scored 309 for 3 (net 294) with Hector, Sebd and Tommy all reaching double figures.
- In the first of two fixtures against South North we had one of our best batting performances and only lost 2 wickets to each a scored of 285 for (net 275). Some good tight bowling restricted South North to 285 for 6 (net 255) with Aryan picking up his first wicket, Tommy getting 2 wickets and Seb and Oliver both getting one each.
- we came up against a much stronger South North team the following weekend with their team having a number of county players. Some good straight, quick bowling limited us to 266 for 9 (net 221) with Oliver and Rahim both batting well. Some tight bowling kept us in the game but some overthrows and good hitting from the last South North pair led them to 324 for 7 (net 289). Hector and Tommy both picked up 2 wickets.
We had two more u11 debuts for Thomas W and Thomas F in our game at home against Newcastle. Yet again it was a windy day which made for some challenging conditions. Despite this Thomas F took a great catch and we managed to get 4 run outs. We also had two new wicket keepers (Nicholas and Freddie) so did well to limit Newcastle to a net score of 255. We struggled in our reply with some good bowling but kept in touch with Sukhveer and Aryan putting on a good partnership before three 4s in a over from Sai gave us a chance to win. The last pair needed 20 to win and despite losing a wicket we needed 7 off the last off the last over and ended up winning with a single off the last ball. One of the more unusual sights was Nicholas hitting a great on drive only to see it hit his brother at the non strikers end in the helmet. Thankfully it didn’t end up being a catch but it stopped a certain 4 runs.
Under 9 festival update
As Mark (Coolio) was away on holiday for the latest festival at Corbridge this will be a much simpler and succinct report. Our latest festival was out at a windy Corbridge and with lots of players away on holiday we had some new faces in our team - James, Ava and Coco - and we also had Jake as our team mascot and 9th player! As well as some windy conditions the boundaries were as large as an u11 match meaning for the first time this year we didn’t hit any sixes. The first match was against Stocksfield with Ava getting a wicket in her first over as we limited Stocksfield to a net score of 215. Our reply wasnt helped as Austin was making up an extra fielder for Stocksfield) took a great catch much to the frustration of his Benwell Hill team mates. We ended up on 221 with Coco and James putting on 15 batting as a pair. The second game was against a strong Backworth team and after losing 5 wickets in the first half of the innings we did well to get to 215. Unfortunately despite some good bowling we didn’t get any wickets and Backworth ended up on 234. Our final game was against a young Matfen team and batting first Joseph led the way with 3 boundaries as we scored net 221. In our best bowling performance we kept the reply to 205 with Thomas and Austin both getting a wicket.
As always there was a great team spirit and lots of support so we now only have 1 festival left which is on 11th September.
