Shrewsbury School U15s at national finals
Shrewsbury School bowed out at the semi-final stage representing Shropshire in the national finals of the ECB/ESCA Under 15s competition at the beautiful Arundel Castle ground.
They qualified by winning the Midlands Final in the Summer, and were up against Scarborough College in the first semi-final in Sussex.
Their opponents won the toss and elected to bat first, but Shrewsbury’s opening bowlers kept the batters in check and after 8.3 overs they were only 44-3 thanks mainly to a superb 4 over spell from opening bowler Hugo Lowther conceding just 13 runs.
However, an excellent fourth wicket partnership between put on 66 runs in 39 deliveries but then Shrewsbury picked up four wickets in the space of 22 balls.
A partnership of 23 off the final nine balls of the innings enabled Scarborough to reach 162 for 7.
Jake Van Cutsem (4-43) was the most successful Shrewsbury bowler while Leo Ling and Rufus Darke took 2 wickets apiece.
In reply, the Shrewsbury openers got them off to a quick start adding 29 off 23 deliveries until Harry Parton was dismissed for 17 off nine balls.
There followed useful contributions from captain Ling (20 off 29), Darke (14 off 17), Van Cutsem (22 off 25), Hugh Allwood (12 off 10) and Arjan Barard (17 off 13) but were unable to score quick enough to challenge the Scarborough total finishing on 136-6 to lose by 26 runs.
Great credit goes to Shrewsbury for their excellent run to Finals Day. In the final, Scarborough lost by 64 runs to an excellent Harrow team.
Report by Steve Aston.