Reading under 13s through to cup quarter final

On a baking hot day Reading powered through to the quarter final of their cup competition by beating local rivals Sonning by 38 runs. Josh the Reading captain won the toss and elected to bat. Josh and Arjun set a firm foundation seeing off some good bowling by the Sonning pace attack. Arjun made a classy 21 runs before being bowled. This brought Garjuran to the wicket and with Josh was soon playing an array of shots. Garjuran retired on 30, with Josh retiring on 32. Aarav and Ajmal then formed another good partnership with Aarav rotating the strike well and Ajmal hitting some powerful boundaries including a brutal 6 that cleared the boundary by some distance. Aarav was caught for 10 and Ajmal also caught for 23. The remaining Reading batters unselfishly did their best to keep pushing for quick runs helping Reading to a good final total of 159-5.
In reply Sonning struggled to get going against a good opening attack of Ashwyn and Raheel. William Hibberdine was well caught off the bowling of Ashwyn by wicketkeeper Henry. The other Sonning opener Louis Dean soon was out caught by Arjun off Gaajuran's bowling. Sonning fought back with good knocks by Alex (12 - run out by Ashwyn and Henry), Michael Longridge (18 - stumped by Henry off the bowling of Arjun) and Gonmy (bowled by Josh). In the final over Jibran picked up 2 wickets ( Mayank LBW and Salman well caught by Josh off the final ball of the match).
This was a good result against a strong Sonning side. there were some very good performances with the bat and ball, though perhaps we need to continue to improve our fielding (a lot of catches went down) and the consistency of our bowling (there were too many extras). If we could have done this we might have won even more convincingly.
Nevertheless a good victory with all the boys working hard in very hot conditions. Well done.