Taylorian 2020

96 Sport Sport Cricket 2019 1 st XI In what a seasoned observer described as ‘one of the best school matches I have ever seen’, the XI played South London champions Whitgift in the London final of the National Schools T20 Competition for a place in the last eight. Rohan Day and Samir Sardana got us off to a good start, with Rohan batting beautifully, scoring 53 off 43 balls. Whitgift then showed what a good side they are by bowling and fielding tightly. Fortunately, we had depth in our batting, enabling us to score 29 off the last three overs and to finish on 135-8 – slightly below par, we thought, but defendable. Whitgift lost a wicket in the second over, but that brought the talented Nyeem Young to the wicket. He launched a blistering attack on our bowling. However, he made the mistake of taking on David Burnell’s arm in going for a second run, and David ran him out with a brilliant direct hit. Despite this, Whitgift were still favourites to win. 37 needed off five overs with six wickets in hand, and just 18 needed off three overs with five wickets left. Now the real drama started, as Rohan Day bowled the 19th over. He bowled rapidly and gave nothing away, Whitgift had to take risks, and their number 6 was run out by a direct hit from Rahul Randev; next ball, Rohan clean bowled their number 7. Four runs off the over, and Whitgift needed 12 to win with three wickets in hand off the final over. Max John showed he is a man for the big occasion with disguised variations of pace, taking two wickets (including a good catch by Aman Sandhu), and Whitgift managed just 5 runs off the over to finish 7 short of our total. For the third consecutive year we are London Champions, and played the South East Champions Tonbridge in the South of England Final, winning the toss and choosing to field first. Despite this early setback, Tonbridge started to accelerate, and after ten overs were 77-1. At this stage we were anticipating a score of 170+. However, our spinners stuck to their plans. We fielded well and caught Cricketers training with the Sri Lanka team