Cumbria Cricket’s Under-13 team are celebrating a fantastic start to July with not one but two victories against tough opposition teams.
The inspiration of this summer’s ICC Cricket World Cup is certainly affecting Cumbria this month, with the county’s U13 taking two victories against quick succession, defeating Nottingham on the seventh and North Yorkshire on the ninth.
The victories began on a beautiful day at Staffield CC with Notts winning the toss and electing to bat. Cumbria took an early wicket and an effective bowling attack kept the pressure on restricting them to 126 all out. The boys were equally sharp in the field creating two run outs and taking catching opportunities.
Cumbria batted sensibly and knocked the runs off in the 21st over for the loss of just 3 wickets, one being a lovely catch on the boundary by a Cumbrian player loaned to Notts due to injury!
Later in the week, on a more drizzly 9th of July at Cockermouth CC, North Yorkshire won the toss and put their opposition into bat. Cumbria got off to a good with solid start batting well against the quicker bowlers. However, when the spinners came on the run rate slowed and wickets began to fall. Luckily Cumbria had good depth in their batting line-up and positive running began to force North Yorkshire into making fielding errors. Whilst there was no stand out batting performance, the combined total of 161/9 from 35 overs gave Cumbria a manageable bowling target.
An early North Yorkshire wicket added to Cumbria’s confidence and despite them building promising partnerships wickets fell at regular intervals. Cumbria took the final wicket with North Yorkshire needing only 13 runs to win, their second of the week.
A spokesman for Davies Taxis of Keswick, team sponsors, said “We’re very proud to be associated with the team – they’ve really done Cumbria proud over the past few days. It’s always fantastic to see a high standard of cricket played and the team certainly do that, as well as bringing a really positive and professional attitude to every game. We can’t wait until the next game and wish the team every success for the rest of the season.”