Newell Cashes in During the 12s Debut

A first competitive match for the Under 12s saw a visit to Farnborough Road, to play Ellerslie, in an 11 aside fixture.

A bitterly cold and miserable night would certainly test the spirits of the new players from both sides. Regulars of Shepherd, Neece, Newell and Cairns were joined by Rock, Blacklock, Cox and Kitching plus the debutants of Burns, Malik and Ackroyd.

Cairns won the toss and elected to bat, eager to take advantage of Tuckwell's offer of £5 for the first man to retire on 35. Cairns and Neece opened, only for the latter to be back in the hutch, during the first over, after lofting one to cover.

Newell watched on as Cairns worked three nice boundaries around his pads before playing across the line and departing LBW, for 14.

Blacklock and Newell put on an excellent 43, as Tuckwell and scoring partner could bear no more and headed to the warmth of the car: Right indicator to confirm wides, left indicator: no balls, full beam: boundaries.

Blacklock departed for 10, caught in the covers, as Newell decided to hit the gas. A strong leg side 6 was followed by 3 successive boundaries as Tom raced to holy grail of 35 to rapturous applause from his team mates. Tuckwell was left thinking of an excuse with £2.72 in his pocket.

With 3 overs to go Shepherd hit some boundaries before a low one removed off stump. Rock and Cox followed in quick succession leaving Burns and Kitching to close out the innings.

98-6 off 18.

Shepherd and Rock opened the bowling, the latter removing middle stump wiith his first delivery. Shepherd, out of sorts, looked to remove the openers head in his second over. One in the bread basket enough to retire the other opener.

Kitching bamboozled everyone with his leg spin. The flighted one, uplayable, bowling the number 3 and finishing with figures of 2-0-4-1.

Malik, having only 2 practice games under his belt, bowled excellently. A wicket maiden a great way to finish off, thankful to Burns for a great catch at long on.

At 28-3 off 10 the KCC boys were well on top, so much so, the opposition manager looked to play for bad light, which was declined!

With all players given a chance to bowl, runs came more freely and at 64-4 off 15, thoughts of bad light had disappeared...

Newell was called upon to shut up shop and was immediately in the action. The batsman wrongly chancing the arm of Burns who arrowed in to Blacklock to remove the bails. 4 more dots followed before the No.8s middle stump went cart wheeling.

Neece turned the screw further, before Captain Cairns concluded the innings. Ellerslie finished on 74-6, leaving the 12s with a maiden 25 run victory and Man-of-the-Match, Newell Quids in!