Regional Cricket Update

28th June 2021 | Matt Thompson

Cricket Wales North Report

22.06.21 (Sam Painter, CWN Pathway Lead)

It’s been great to be back out on the field competing and playing cricket across the age groups in Wales and with our neighbouring counties over the border. Overall I’d say things are going pretty well for CWN, regional cricket has had a lot to deal with, from the new changes to the poor weather! Without the efforts of parents, coaches and above all, you the players, we would struggle to make the start we have so a massive thank you to all.

On the field we’ve already played a lot of games with mixed results across the age groups and the platforms we compete on. Thanks you to all who were involved over the half term week, particularly those of you with 2 or 3 siblings in the programme; pretty sure you would have been out most days watching your kids play cricket.

The Under 11’s (both teams) have been competitive in the majority of games played, I’m sure we’ll convert that effort into a few more W’s in the not so distant future. It’s a long season and it does appear thus far the 11’s have done a considerable amount of travel. You can look forward to some home games coming up.

The Under 12’s have only played a couple of games a bad start against Staffordshire and played a lot better against CWS at Brymbo CC. The under 12’s fixture list really picks up this next month or so with a lot of exciting games on the horizon, starting this weekend with CWE away at Crickhowell CC. I’ll be attending a few of the 12’s games through July and look forward to seeing more of this age group play in that time period.

The Under 13’s have turned in some decent performances when at full strength. This is a very competent team and has a good balance to it. I took the game at Aberystwyth CC vs CWS and I thought we played some really good cricket and in the end shared the spoils on the day. The team showed tremendous heart and desire to win and it was a very good team effort overall.

The Under 14’s Have only played two internal games with the South & West, winning 1 and losing 1 of those days. We’ve turned in very credible performances against Staffs and Lancashire who are both good sides. We’re really happy with the style of cricket we are trying to play and the attitude of the players is very strong. Similar to both 11’s sides, we expect this group to have a strong summer.

The Under 15’s played some very good cricket, beating Staffs away. We were in a position where they could have beaten Lancashire also. We have some very exciting players in this group which makes us a good and well balanced cricket team. Keep working hard guys, we expect to see more of the same and the results will come. In the Welsh competition we have played 1 game and won it. The team has a nice dynamic within it and we are happy with results and level of effort shown.

The under 13’s & 15’s development teams have played some games, but unfortunately the early part of the season has been disrupted with rain and availability of players in some cases. I’ll endeavour to source more games for you as the summer progresses. We still have a strong fixture list which we’ll expand on over the next few weeks, starting with the 15’s Development playing CWS at Montgomery CC this coming Sunday.

Cricket Wales East Report

14.06.21 (Geraint Leach, CWE Co-Pathway Lead)

Its been a busy past few weeks for the East teams with 31 fixtures being played thanks to the recent good weather. There have been some excellent games of a competitive nature and some very pleasing performances notably in external fixtures with the U12 defeating Dorset, and the U13 and U15 winning matches against Somerset.

In terms of inter-regional matches there has been plenty of activity and some very closely contested games throughout the age groups. The Super Series has started and all age groups have managed to be triumphant in at least one fixture against their counterparts.

Individually there have been some exceptional performances with the bat and ball particularly with Jacob Blades scoring an unbeaten 110 against Dorset and Elgan Williams getting 95 not out against Somerset. Isabel Harrington continued her impressive start to the season, scoring 73 against Millfield School while Jak Cosker and Jac Kenchington claimed 5 wicket hauls against Shropshire and Somerset respectively in external matches.

Within inter regional fixtures there have been numerous maiden 50s for the East scored including:

• Toby Smith, Rupert Jones & Joshua Powell at U11
• Rhys Pollit, Tallah Navid & Ffredi Easterby, Henry Sullivan, Matthew Powell & Samuel Cozma (all U12)
• Lewis Popple, Jonny Lowrie & Elgan Williams at U13
• George Lloyd at U14
• Logan Williams & Dan Carnell at U15

Cricket Wales West Report

17.06.21 (Steve Lewis, CWW Pathway Lead)

After what seems like an eternity it’s finally good to get some cricket played in the sunshine!!

Our season here in the West finally began at the end of May after a few weeks of rain. By this point everyone was raring to go, which is always nice to see. From what we have seen and heard from players, parents, coaches, umpires and even ground staff – everyone is happy cricket is back on the agenda!

A big thanks to all the parents for their support with not only the usual cricket admin but also with the changes this year, as well as COVID restrictions and rules. It’s been really appreciated that this has been supported by everyone involved.

Every team has played at least one game, some have played more. These fixtures will get played and things will even themselves out as the season goes on.

• Under 11’s Performance Team has played 6 games, won 3, lost 3. Notable performance Harry Randall 61
• Under 11’s Development Team has played 6 games, won 2, lost 4.
• Under 12’s Performance Team have played 6 games, won 2, lost 4.
• Under 12’s Development Team have played 2 games, lost 2.
• Under 13’s Team have played 5 games, won 2, lost 3. Notable performance Oscar Willington 66 not out & Carwyn Jones 113.
• Under 14’s Performance Team has played 6, lost 6.
• Under 14’s Development Team has played 3, won 1, lost 2. Notable performance Liam Miller 69.
• Under 15’s Team have played 5 games, won 3, lost 2. Notable performance Ollie Berry 52 & Jac Bennett 4-21.

Most games played to date have been very close, some even going down to the last over.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all players selected to represent Wales this season. It is an honour, and every single player should be proud of themselves. Enjoy the experience!

The West coaches and I have been really impressed with how the players have taken to the new regional programme, new friends have been made & I can already see this is going to be a great season and I look forward to watching players develop through the summer.

Cricket Wales South Report

22.06.21 (Mark Cox, CWS Pathway Lead)

After losing all our winter programme to Covid lockdowns, coaches, parents and children were delighted to get started with four weeks of summer training at various venues across South Wales. Almost 200 boys and girls from across the South Wales region took part in four outdoor training sessions and with 8 sessions a week across three different areas we really needed the weather to play ball and to everyone’s surprise it did and we managed to complete the full four week programme without losing one session to bad weather.

Girls Internal Festivals

In April half term Ynystawe CC hosted four days of internal fixtures for girls from across all four regions. The girls braved snow, rain and cold to play cricket across all four days and National age group coaches from Glamorgan were also in attendance to help inform selection for Wales age group teams.

There was some excellent talent on show and great fun had by all the players and coaches despite the challenging weather conditions.

A further four festivals have also been played throughout May and June hosted by Merthyr and Aberdare for our senior and junior girls to get some valuable game time.

Our junior girls played two T20 games against West Glamorgan U10s on May Bank Holiday. Each side played a game each to share the spoils on the day with string batting from Davies, Cox and Howells.

Under 11s

Our under 11s and 11s development suffered wash outs in the first two weeks of their campaigns but finally got going when they travelled North to play Cricket Wales North in the first round of super series games. The performance side won two close fought games to secure four points in the first round of games and the development side also managed to come away with two wins from two.

Next up for our 11s was CW West at home. Again, we managed to win all four games over the two sides. Ed Johnson 52 hit the first fifty for our 11s in game one for the performance team and Lewis Sanu continued his good form to score 48 in game two.

For our development side Jude Jenkins was once again in the runs.

U11s development side collected another two wins against a Cricket Wales U12s Girls development side at Porthcawl with strong performances across the whole team

Last weekend saw the most recent series of games for our U11s sides against CW East. Our performance side lost both games to a strong SW East side.

The development side lost game one at Tata steel but roared back to win a thrilling second game defending four off the last ball of the game to win.

U12s

Our under 12s sides have been impacted more than most by the weather with wash outs in the first two weeks of the season.

U12s performance side got going with two rounds of fixtures during the June half term. Firstly, away to CW West on the 1^st of June. CW South were good value for their win in the first game by 26 runs but CW West bounced back to claim game two by 9 runs making it two points each for both sides on the day. We then travelled to North Wales three days later to play CW North in game one CW South scored 110 for 5 in their 20 with Thomas, Edwards and Collins-Hughes all contributing. In game two CW North posted 74 from their 20 overs and CW South passed the score with 10 overs to spare to claim all four points up for grabs on the day.

Round three saw the U12s performance side take on a very strong CW East side at Merthyr CC. We showed tremendous fight against a side stacked with current and no doubt future internationals who were just too strong for us on the day as the East walked away with all four points from the day making it 6 points from a possible 12 in our first round of matches.

The 12s development side have been hindered by wash outs with their first three weeks of fixtures washed out due to rain. We finally got underway against CW East at Margam Park in June for our super series fixture. It was a tough ask for a side which had yet to play a game and many children playing their first regional game up against a well drilled East side and this reflected in the first game as we lost heavily the players bounced back to make a more competitive score in game two mainly thanks to Hall and Fitzgerald  however our friends from the East walked away with all four points for the day a tough day at the office but we will be better for the run out.

Under 13s

The U13s kick started their season with a series of intra-squad games between both performance and development players. Both games took place in April at Vale CC as we took advantage of a delay in the start to senior cricket there were strong performances across all two days from a variety of players but the stand out knock was from Aaron Bird who scored a superb century in the first game to chase the total down for his side this was the first 100 of the year for CW South and a 50 in game two.

Like our other side the first two weeks of fixtures were prevented due to rain and we had to wait until half term to start our competitive fixtures as we travelled to North Wales. It was that man Brid to the fore once again as he hit another fine century in the first T20 to take CW South to 140 from our 20 overs. That always looked to be enough as we won by 42 runs. Game two was a much tighter affair however as CW North won by 12 runs to make it one all for the day and two points each.

A visit to Cathedral school ended in a thriller as we came up just short in a chase losing by 9 runs against an older school side

The U13s development side travelled to Welshpool during half term to play their first fixtures. In game one CW South won by 62 runs and in game two won by five wickets chasing 70 to walk away with all four points for the day.

Next up was a competitive friendly against CW West Performance side this was a good opportunity for our development side to play against a performance squad and push a case for inclusion in the performance squad at a later stage of the season. In game one CW West chased down our 92 5 wickets down in the 19^th over but in game two we secured a fine win after bowling the opposition our for 67 Lewys Tollerfield made short work of the target with a hard hitting 30 from 15 balls to chase the score down with three overs to spare. 

Under 14s

The U14s performance side started their campaign at Pontarddulais CC against a visiting CW North. In the first game CW South scored 132 in our allocation of overs with contributions from the top five batters. Tight bowling and good fielding meant CW North were never in the chase and we eventually run out 32 run winners. In game two CW North elected to bat first and were all out for 55 with Issac Foster the pick of the bowlers with 3 for 4. We then passed the target in 3.3 overs with Sam Elks hitting three sixes on his way to 32 from 12 balls

Next, we welcomed CW West to Cydach CC for two T20s friendlies. In game one chasing 104 we looked completely out of the game with three overs to go but Sam Elks hit 32* from 14 balls to get us over the line with 2 balls to spare. Game 2 was a more straightforward affair as we posted 145 after contributions from Mann, Humphries, Elks and Edwards and bowled the West our for 85 Smart the pick of the bowlers with 3 wickets.

Herefordshire visited at Port Talbot Town CC in a 45 over fixture. Hobbs, Humphries, Hart and Edwards set the platform strong hitting down the order from Davies and Evans to see us post 293 from our 45 overs. Despite the good pitch that always looked enough with Herefordshire all out for 128 as the wickets were shared amongst the attack.

Next up a super series clash away to CW East. A fine 82 from Humphries and 45 from Edwards help us set a 213. That always looked enough as wickets for Mann and Foster restricted CW East to 150. Taking the three points in offer for the longer format game.

The development side played CW West in their first round of games and it was one all for the day with CW West winning the first and South winnings the second. Adam Akhtar performed with the bat while William Portway picked up a five-wicket haul in game one with his leg spin.

Akhtar and Jenkins along with accurate bowling from the whole attack led the development side to another win against CW West in a competitive friendly to make it a strong start for both our U14s teams.

U15s

Our U15s performance side lost their first game of the season in a 45 over friendly against CW West at Whitland. CW South posted 149/9 with 48 from Stephens and 42 from Burton and despite a spirited performance in the field it was never likely to be enough at CW West got home by three wickets with two overs to spare. U14s Macsen Denman playing up due to availability issues claimed three wickets with his left arm wrist spin.

The second game for our 15s included two super series T20s at Merthyr CC. CW North won both games T20 games comfortably to claim all four super series points. The 15s will be looking forward to an improved performance as they take on CW East at Panteg next weekend.

Our 15s development side have so far only managed to play one fixture due to a mixture of poor weather and unavailability of players. That game was against CW West Performance side at Llangennech. Fine bowling from Michael Suter with four wickets in the first game ensured a tight finish but West came out eventual winners CWS managed to win game two after a strong performance from Tomos Williams with 42 and two wickets.