Under 11s off to a winning start

Reading started their league campaign with a home fixture against Thatcham on Sunday 7th May. Reading's captain Gaajuran won the toss and elected to bowl. Opening bowlers Ashwin and Sam were quickly on the spot putting the Thatcham batsmen under pressure. After a maiden in his first over , Ashwin bowled the Thatcham opener to get his first wicket on his Reading debut. Thatcham did well to gradually recover with Cooper, Hawkins and Moore making good contributions. All the Reading bowlers stuck to their task well and were well supported in the field with lots of good backing up. Ben Gruber earned a wicket on his Reading debut when a Thatcham batsman looped up a catch taken by Gaajuran. Ashwin came back to claim a second wicket in his second spell when he bowled Campbell. Other notable contribution came from Aarav who bowled an economical spell of off spin and Zac from the under 9s who only conceded 5 runs in his over which was against some of Thatcham's strongest batsmen. Henry also performed well as keeper and completed a run out following an accurate throw from Sam. Josh showed good character to keep going after a neck injury. At the end of the 20 overs Thatcham had been restricted to 101 runs.
After Henry was unluck to be caught early on, Raheel and Josh built a partnership of around 20 runs before Josh was unlucky to be run out by a direct hit on the stumps from distance. Gaajuran then played a captain's innings, retiring on 30 off only 12 balls including two fours and two sixes. Raheel (21 not out) and Ashwin (11 not out) saw the side home to win by 8 wickets with 4 overs to spare. The boys should all be congratulated on a good team effort on their first match - well done.