Bentley U18's v Brentwood U18 Buccaneers - wed 3/7
Essex cricket has set up a fantastic Twenty/Twenty cricket tournament for ages up to Under 18 years. The county has divided teams into four groups that lead to a final held at the County ground under floodlights. The Brentwood Buccaneers have been kindly sponsored by CIK Construction which had supplied them with coloured kit. All the matches use a coloured ball. These matches involve boys who are starting to hit the ball as hard as their senior counterparts. Balls are regularly hit out of the ground, fielding is athletic, the game has changed from the gentle village green to exhilarating powerhouse thrillers.
Brentwood Captain Billy Hull lost the toss and the home side decided to bat first. Energetic Brentwood bowling and fielding meant that Bentley started slowly. The bowling was shared out amongst seven of the Brentwood team. Bentleys Crispin and Larkin hit out in the final stages and Parmenter hit a massive six over the road and into a Chinese ladies garden! but the score of 123 for 4 had been boosted by 33 extras from Brentwood who struggled to control the new pink ball which swung a lot. The batting of Kris Ali and Douglas Maxwell showed that Buccaneers were very dominant in this T20 group match. They scored at 10 an over. When Ali (32 off 29) was brilliantly caught on the boundary by Clark, Essex and England's Harry Levy scored a brisk 28 off 20 balls. Maxwell was out lbw on 49 off just 28 balls including two consecutive sixes. The Buccaneers had scored the 124 required in just 13 over's.