by Dominic O’Reilly

The road to Edgbaston began on a wet and windy October morning where the squad took the long journey to Headingley, Leeds. Coming up against 2 teams from Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam as well as Edge Hill, we walked away with 5 wins from 5 with some fantastic individual performances such as Jacob Hockey’s 50* vs Sheffield Hallam 2’s and Jacob Ward’s 3 for 6 vs Edge Hill. What was even more pleasing was the togetherness shown by the lads throughout the day which contributed to a great win vs Sheffield 1’s by just 3 runs.

As a result, we progressed through to the next stage of the competition in Leicester where we faced the 8 best teams from the northern part of the country, with Leeds, East Anglia and St Andrews in our group. The first 2 games saw us beat East Anglia however lose against Leeds meaning our final game against St Andrews was a must win if we wanted to qualify. A great bowling and fielding performance from the lads left us needing just 57 to win from 10 over. An opening partnership of 50 saw us win convincingly and progress to the national finals winning 2 from 3.

It’s no surprise the success the boys are having, with how hard not only the performance squad are working, training 3 times a week at 7am with S and C on a Wednesday, but how the society as a whole have been training over the last couple of months on Wednesday afternoons and Friday nights.

It would be great to see as much support as possible for the lads in the build up to Edgbaston on the 5^th Feb, it makes a real difference and is really appreciated.