Shrewsbury School U15s through to national finals

Shrewsbury School Under 15s survived a semi-final scare against Bedford School to claim victory at the Midlands Finals and progress to National Finals Day in September.

Bedford needed a six off the final ball of the semi-final to tie and force a super over, but were restricted to just two leaving Shrewsbury winners by four runs.

Shrewsbury hosted the finals day and qualified themselves after winning the Shropshire competition and then beating the Herefordshire and Staffordshire champions in the regional rounds.

They batted first in the semi-final and finished their 20 overs on 120-4 against a very good Bedford bowling attack. 

Captain Leo Ling hit 50 off 53 deliveries provided the backbone of the of the Shrewsbury total with Jake Van-Cutsem (25 off 29) and Hugh Allwood (19 off 17) giving excellent support. 

Bedford made a superb start to their reply with the openers putting on 53 in 7.3 overs. 

However, the Shrewsbury spin bowlers then put a brake on scoring with Arjun Barard returning impressive figures of 3-9 off 4 overs. Van-Cutsem, Rufus Darke & Ling claimed a wicket apiece as Bedford fell just short in the chase.

The other semi-final saw a strong Uppingham (Leicestershire) comfortably defeat the Warwickshire champions Warwick School by 36 runs.

The final saw Uppingham win the toss and bat first.

Excellent bowling and fielding by the hosts limited Uppingham to a below par 114-5 with Darke returning excellent figures of 2-11 off his four overs. 

Van-Cutsem also excelled with 1-14 off four while Ling also took a wicket. An important run out by Sam Spiby dismissed the Uppingham top scorer for 57.

Shrewsbury made a confident start to their reply with openers Harry Parton (23 off 21) & Ling adding 38 off 34 balls for the first wicket.

But then four quick wickets reduced them to 55-4 in the 10th over. 

However, important contributions from the middle order from Van-Cutsem (23 off 22 balls), Barard (21no off 20)  and Allwood (15no off 8) ensured there were no late alarms as Shrewsbury won by 5 wickets with four overs to spare. 

Shrewsbury now advance to the National finals at Arundel Castle on Sunday, September 1.

Shrewsbury 1st Xl boys & girls teams were both narrowly defeated in their HMC Schools semi-finals at the weekend missing out on a trip to Lord’s this Friday. The boys were hampered by the unavailability of allrounder Theo Wylie due to England U19 commitments. The girls’ final will be the first girls match to take place at the Home of English Cricket.

Meanwhile 1st Xl skipper, Jack Home starred for Worcestershire 2nd Xl against neighbours Warwickshire in a 4-day match, taking 4-10 in the Warwickshire 1st innings.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *