Saturday morning saw the arrival of our overseas player, Gift Kwatsha. Gift is a fast bowler and middle order batsman who comes from Port Elizabeth in South Africa. He will be playing in our first XI, as well as assisting with senior and junior coaching. Gift has some great ideas about how to improve the standard of our cricket and we look forward to working with him over the next few months. Welcome to the club!
Saturday
This weekend just gone saw our four league teams take to the field for the first time in 2022. The 1st XI started the season with a resounding away win at Aldershot, racking up 297/7 before bowling out Aldershot for under 200. There were contributions from all round the team including 79 from the evergreen Duncan Parr and 4 wickets for Gift on debut but it was a great team effort from all.
In their first match after promotion the 2nd XI came up against a strong Newbury 1st team who were relegated despite finishing 7th in Division 4. They made 246 and Sonning fell around 40 short at the end of our 45 overs. The 3rd XI had a great match against Thatcham, coming up just 4 runs short with Arun Pera impressing with 3-18 from 10 overs whilst the 4th XI lost by 8 wickets against a good Newbury 3rd XI, despite 59 from skipper Charles Astwood and a rare Isaac Blakey wicket.
Sunday
On Sunday the 1st XI continued their cup run with a 175 run victory over Pinkneys Green in round 2 of the National Village Cup. After being put into bat Sonning started well with Pete Dean and Dan Anderson putting on 80 for the opening wicket, the first wicket brought Pete Higginbottom to the crease who proceeded to dispatch the bowling to all parts on the way to a sensational 132* ably supported by Ollie Rowe with 47*. A strong bowling performance then followed and Pinkneys Green were bowled out for 117.
We will play Division 1 side Cookham Dean in the next round on May 22nd. This will be a great test against a good side, details of the venue to follow.
Juniors
The most pleasing aspect of this weekends matches have been the contributions from our young players, many of whom have come through our junior set up at Sonning. Louis Dean made his maiden first team 50, Ella Phillips picked up 2 more wickets and Ollie Rowe had another good weekend with bat and ball. The 2nd XI saw Will Hibberdine play one of the best innings from a youngster we've seen at KGF with a fine 85 against Newbury as well as an excellent display behind the stumps on Saturday & Sunday. With the ball Ali Kaleem, Michael Longridge and Jamie Tidbury all picked up wickets whilst bowling with great skill and pace.
The 3rd XI had two 13 year old leg spinners in their side (Daniel Longridge and Adil Malik), who bowled a combined 20 overs for 2 wickets and 69 runs, a fantastic achievement for two young spinners. Daniel also made his first XI debut on Sunday in the cup, picking up two wickets and fielding with great enthusiasm and commitment. Alexander Fleming kept wicket brilliantly, picking up 1 catch and 1 stumping, and a wonderfully mature innings from 13 year old Shenul Widanapathirana, with great support from Adil, was the reason that Sonning got so close to the win.
The 4th XI saw Josh Jones continue his development behind the stumps, a senior debut for Stephen Pollard who bowled with the new ball and 2014 Colt of the Year runner up Isaac Blakey had a nice run around.
With so many talented young cricketers at the club the future is very promising for Sonning. Our thanks go out to all the coaches and volunteers who work so hard to ensure that these youngsters are able to play cricket each week. We look forward to seeing all of them develop into even better cricketers and watch them score plenty of runs and take plenty of wickets for Sonning in the future.
