Boundaries galore

Goresbrook U9's travelled to North Stifford for a game with Belhus on Sunday morning.
Asked to field first Goresbrook's fielders gave away a flurry of overthrows in the opening overs on a very small pitch but took 3 early wickets that kept the net score down. Albert Sleight hit the stumps and his brother Stanley took a catch off Harry Ivory before Albie Smith threw down the stumps. Thereafter all the young bowlers performed well and Belhus found runs very hard to come by but Brook struggled to take any further wickets. Archie Dias gave away just a wide in 3 overs and Philippe Thoufick bowled 2 maidens. There were also maidens for Harry Ivory, Grace Wood, Liam Elsom and a wicket maiden for Stanley Sleight who knocked over the stumps.
There were perhaps a few too many wides but a good fielding performance left Belhus on 242-4 at the end of their 20 overs.
Albert Sleight hit the first ball of the innings for 4 but missed a straight one 2 balls later. His partner Harry Ivory helped keep runs ticking over before he too fell in the 3rd over.These two wickets left a net score of 8 at the end of the first four overs.
The next pair of Grace Wood and Bella Boland struggled to get bat on ball from various wayward or rolling balls and both succumbed to pea rollers.
However the next pair of Liam Elsom and Archie Dias pushed the score on as Liam Elsom hit the ropes 4 times in his knock of 16 for a solitary dismissal to leave Brook in a strong looking position with their 3 senior batsmen still to come.
Phil Thoufick and Albie Smith gave a dazzling display as they hit the ropes almost at will adding 44 runs in their partnership but the gloss was taken off a touch when Smith was bowled for 13 but Thoufick's 24* was exemplary.
Last man Stanley Sleight batted safe in the knowledge that only the loss of more than 4 wickets would cost Brook the game and he had no intention of allowing this to happen as he carved the ball around the ground in a sparking undefeated innings of 20 that took the final score to 275-8
In the end the experience of the elder statesmen in the side proved crucial as Brook ran out winners by a margin of 33 runs. The sole disappointment was the loss of 8 wickets, seven of them bowled which is something that clearly needs to be worked on in training in the coming weeks.