Back row: Heydir Ali, Max James, Sam Currie, Cameron Green, Will Jacks, Ben Shaw
Front Row: Harry Wilkinson, Alex Sweet, Fred McMillan, Matthew Denley, Nathanial Brittany

Guildford Cricket Club’s Under 15s are champions. They won the Surrey final of the ECB national competition to complete a hat-trick of wins.

52 clubs from Surrey entered the competition and Guildford played the final of the Surrey section against Wimbledon CC at Chessington Cricket Club on Tuesday, June 25.

The game was covered by CricHQ who provided the MVP award and live ball-by-ball text commentary which could be viewed worldwide.

Guildford were buoyed by the availability of Surrey county players Alex Sweet and Will Jacks and were able to field an almost full strength XI. Confident that they had strength and depth in the batting line up, Guildford had no hesitation in electing to bat first when they won the toss.

Their opening pair, Will Jacks and Heydir Ali, got off to a cautious start in the first few overs due to some good bowling from the Wimbledon opening pair. When Ali was out caught at midwicket with the score at 15 for 1 in the fifth over it was left to Will Jacks and Alex Sweet to take full advantage of Wimbledon’s first and second change bowlers.

Will Jacks retired at 50 from 34 balls including three huge sixes leaving Alex Sweet to guide the innings to a close with a score of 38 not out from 35 balls. He was ably assisted with some hard hitting by Max James, 18 from 11 balls. Guildford finished the innings with a score of 145 for 4.

In reply, Wimbledon seemed to have no real answer to the Guildford bowling attack. Ben Shaw opened the bowling with a spell of 4 wickets (all bowled out), for 10 runs off 4 overs. This destroyed Wimbledon’s top order batsmen.

Guildford’s superior bowling strength meant that Wimbledon were never really in contention, with Ben Shaw, Harry Wilkinson and Cameron Green bowling with particular accuracy.

Wimbledon finished their innings on 104 all out, 41 runs short. Only Lace provided any resistance before retiring on 50. Ben Shaw picked up the CricHQ most Valuable Player award for his impressive spell of bowling.

Guildford Under 15s manager, Andy Green said: “It was a great all round performance and every player contributed to this fantastic win. The intensity of the fielding display was particularly pleasing and the team spirit amongst the boys was tangible.

“This national ECB competition is taken very seriously by Guildford CC and we would like to acknowledge the hard work and effort that Surrey Cricket Board put into administering the competition. It is much appreciated.

“We now look forward to hosting Hertfordshire winners, Knebworth CC, in the next national round of the competition and hope that we can continue to progress as far as possible.”