Clare Mount win silver At Alder Cricket Tournament

On a hot 9th June Clare Mount's boys travelled to Alder to take part in the annual cricket tournament across the Merseyside region. We were drawn against Woodchurch High and Alt Bridge schools in our initial group.

In the first game, it was a chance to take on another of our mainstream colleagues with Woodchurch pitting their side against us. Without the older players due to exams it was a chance for our 7 players to shine and we had four players who had never played cricket before who took to the field. Clare Mount produced a solid batting performance with particularly solid innings from Paul, Michael and Kyle to set a target of 252. Reeve performed brilliantly behind the stumps and Dennis, Paul, Marcus, Michael and Kyle bowled excellently to restrict Woodchurch to 236 and close out the first game.

In game 2, Alt Bridge seemed very keen to get a win on the board and bowled tidily to restrict the Clare Mount score before some big hitting at the end set a competitive total to chase. The fielding of the Clare Mount boys was excellent and meant that Alt Bridge fell short and Clare Mount topped the group to secure a place in the Semi Final of the tournament.

The Semi was a tight game with Sandfield Park having some talented and big hitting cricketers in their ranks. Liam had come into the side now and was working as hard as his team mates to enjoy his cricket and win the games. Some late big hitting from Paul, who hit 36 from 10 balls, took the boys to around 270 and a solid total to defend. Sandfield, vocally encouraged by their manager, were up for the challenge and started with some big hitting which got them towards the total but some solid bowling at the end of the innings by Liam and Reeve saw Clare Mount win by 17 and get to the final! A tremendous effort as the semi became an 8 a side game so we were 1 short of the requisite amount of players.

In the final, a well drilled Crosby High side awaited and took wickets at regular intervals. Despite some hard running between the wickets by all the players and Paul hitting 5 sixes in 1 over, the score was tallied as 235 by the umpire at the end of our innings. Time was to count against us as it was deemed that once Crosby passed our score the game would be over which was a change to the pairs format of the other games and Crosby won with an over of potential -5's to spare.

A fantastic day, some fantastic players on all sides and a pleasure to be a part of the tournament. A silver medal for a team with 1 less player than all other sides and 4 players who have never played was magnificent and the main outcome was that the boys had an enjoyable day. Thanks to Mrs Stephenson for taking us to Alder and to my Magnificent 7 players who I am and always will be so proud of. Next up Warrington on 29th June.