First U15s game of the season v Leatherhead away

Hi Everyone,
First I wanted to thank you for making your boys available to play on Sunday.
And second I want to congratulate them on their attitude, I set a managers rule (that I'll be reminding them about every game as players will naturally change week to week) that there was only to be encouraging, positive things said within our team. No different to the senior teams, where the support from the players is always there. Having so many of them who've experienced that helped with understanding what I was asking them to do. But to be honest I was blown away with how they took what I'd asked for and did it to the maximum. When we're out in the field we want to be a whole team, together, against a pair of batters. Those last 2 overs where we got 3 wickets with Leatherhead needing 2 runs to win says it all.
George and Freddie are our captain and vice respectively and they will nominate replacements if they're unavailable.
The emphasis is on developing everyone who plays and they can only develop by playing, so if involvement is lacking one week we'll try to make that up the next. We're not going to set the world of cricket ablaze this year (maybe next), we have a brand new team made up of a broad range of ages, skills and experience, but we're going to be a team, and if we can win a game or 2 we're going to go try our best to do that (as a team).
With that in mind on Sunday we saw our openers a little flummoxed but then we got runs from maybe more unexpected, inexperienced places at this level. Shout outs to AJ for his 18 not out, and Rory (our youngest player) for his 6, and Jack for his first game for BOE for his 8. It's safe to say that we could and should have scored more runs but these things happen.
Our bowling was good, particular credit to George 3 for 3, Freddie 2 for 18 (one wicket was a girl in the Surrey youth setup), Charlie 1 for 6 but all our bowlers took their responsibly and bowled well.
What about James' catch? Superb. And a great team reaction.
So the result wasn't what we'd want, but the teamwork and ethos most certainly was.
Thank you to Simon for umpiring.

Please update your Pitchero for the next match.
Many thanks
Michael
07976 204196