Seemingly as quickly as the Christmas cake has been demolished, then the new cricket season is upon us with the traditional curtain raiser against The Willows at their Loburn ground. I arrived at the ground, McDonald’s coffee in hand, to find it in its full splendor although the blue sky and beating sun were being nullified somewhat by what felt like hurricane force winds! However, not to be deterred, the lads arrived and the game got cracking with only the lack of bails and sightscreens suggesting that the conditions were anything less than perfect! As ever, Gareth Reed (The Willows captain) won the toss (with an invisible coin apparently) and we were asked to have a bowl. With a phalanx of potential fast bowlers on the treatment table, the honour of opening the season fell to Jackson Grace and Blake Nation. Jackson’s first ball to John Garry took the edge and may or may not have carried to Captain Archie Huston at first slip and so he was allowed to continue and boy, did he make it count! Fresh from a century the previous day, Garry Snr took to the bowling (once he had seen himself in) and played beautifully. He was the third wicket to fall after Blake had the first wicket of the new season, Kelvin Scott nicely caught by Louis Hiatt for 2, before Alessio Viettone-Smithson had last year’s centurion, recent leaver (and brother of the Captain) Felix Huston caught by Will Gardiner behind the stumps for 24. Garry Snr was then joined by James O’Gorman who batted nicely initially before opening his shoulders towards the end of the innings. Archie came on and took his first wicket of the new year having Mr Garry stumped attempting one lusty blow too many for 90 (nice work by Will again) and a couple of overs later, fellow spinner Angus Laing had his first wicket, bowling Sam McLernon for 2. The next two batters were the overseas scholarship lads, from Sussex in the UK (in fact one of them, Ollie Moore, plays for the same club as our esteemed manager of the 1stXI did 15 years ago!) and they clearly were very decent cricketers indeed. However, after a solid partnership for the 5th wicket which had taken The WIllows to 263 in the 40th over, the wheels started to come off for the home team. Liam Singer, in his second spell proved to be the initiator with a fine delivery bowling the first Sussex lad, and then in his next over he had the second scholar out caught by Jackson at mid off. In the over between James O’G was out LBW for 93 (giving Sam Scott his first wicket for the team) and all of a sudden the score had moved from 263 for 4 to 271 for 7. Another wicket from Archie in the next over and another to Liam in the over after that (both bowled) meant The WIllows had lost 5 for 20 in 4 overs. A collapse of English proportions! The final wicket saw a mini revival to take the home team to 311 all out in the final over with Louie Garry being the last man out to give Alessio his second scalp.. Lunch was taken and despite the brief shower that the lads had played through midway through the innings, there were more dark and growing clouds on the horizon. Jack Fletcher and Zac Croft opened up for the team and put on a steady opening stand before Zac was well caught in the deep by Huston Snr for 16 in the 13th over. James Hunter joined Jack and after the drinks break the boys set about attacking the change bowlers and with the run rate increasing nicely it was a disappointment when the boys had to come off after 21 overs with the score on 79 for 1. I think the team was on the cusp of a great win, but it was not to be as the weather had the last laugh with, despite the sun coming back out, the 20 mins of pretty serious rain meant the outfield was too wet to continue. Yet more building clouds as we left the ground also suggested more rain was on the way. Jack finished 45 not out and James 10 not out. It was great to see 5 players in their first match for the team, and a further 2 still within their first 5 matches. The energy was high, the effort was solid and there were plenty of positives to be taken from this first run out for the year. Thanks also to all the parents and supporters and of course to The Willows CC for hosting us so well as per usual! We look forward to next year!!

Andrew Levenger Christ’s College Cricket Manager