A lovely sunny evening of cricket at Rectory Park where we welcomed a very young Handsworth team with a few players playing their very first match. A convincing win for Sutton, but not without its moments! Handsworth asked to bat first as some players were stuck in traffic and our U11 team were gracious in obliging. A quiet start with the first 3 overs. Then in over 5 Tom Seager bowled straight through the batter to the stumps for the first wicket of the evening and a wicket maiden too. Handsworth put some runs onto the scoreboard before Ahana Shan's second time at the wicket earned an excellent maiden over. Some solid bowling from Bilal Sultan followed by a maiden over by George Rivers on his second visit to the wicket.

Apart from 2 runs on the first ball, Tom was very close to a second maiden over giving him an outstanding 1 wicket for 2 runs off 2 overs with an average of just 1.0. Caleb Long bowled direct to the stumps on his first ball of the match and then Eric Jaitly did exactly the same on the first ball of his second over. Finally Caleb bowled the last over and earned a wicket maiden with another bowl directly at the stumps.

Some solid fielding overall, with excellent backing up and communication amongst the team. Six players with an economy of 3 or less including Tom's 1 and Caleb's 2. Handsworth finished their innings with 235 for us to chase (scoring starts at 200 with wickets being -5 runs).

Our innings didn't get off to the best of starts, with 3 wickets in the first 4 overs, but the batting pair of George Rivers and Arlo Richardson made up for it with a partnership of 34 including four 4s from Arlo and excellent communication between the stumps with some great quick singles.

Next up were Caleb and Eric with a 42 partnership including two 4s each and several quick singles and twos and even a 3 when the ball refused to roll over the boundary. This was followed by Ahana and Bilal with more excellent running between the stumps and great communication, earning them a 22 partnership with more quick singles and twos. Last up were Tom and Jai with Tom opening with two fours. Some more great communication between the pair and excellent sportsmanship accepting the umpire's understandable leniency with wides and no balls and a 4 in the penultimate over from Jai resulting in a 40 partnership.

Overall batting included 3 players with a strike rate in excess of 100 with Eric achieving 125, Caleb 142 and Tom a massive 156.

Some excellent cricket overall and despite their lack of experience, Handsworth played a good game and showed some very good fielding including at least 3 direct hits to the stumps, albeit after our batters had arrived. Thanks to Caleb for captaining the first game of the season and we look forward to others sharing this role throughout the season. Thanks also to Ian for helping with the setup, Lee for preparing the ground and Kapil for some very fair umpiring that ensured everyone enjoyed the match and showing some excellent sportsmanship with leniency towards the less experienced bowlers as we would expect from Sutton Coldfield Cricket Club's ethos.