The u13's played out an interesting game against Brentwood with 10 players and although they lost the game there were some good positives to take away. Brentwood won the toss and decided to bat and they got off to a strong start with some powerful hitting from their opening pair. The lions pegged them back by taking a couple of wickets in the 7th & 9th overs but the opposition continued scoring even though they lost wickets at regular intervals. They ended the 20 overs with 150 on the scoreboard which was a good total on a pitch with variable bounce and slow outfield.
The Lions started their batting with Joe (birthday boy!) and Henry and we got off to a solid start scoring at 6 an over against a strong bowling attack. We lost Joe in the 6th over which was a blow to the run chase because the boys looked comfortable at the crease. Henry (24) continued to hold up one end and Zak contributed 15 runs before being retired to allow everyone else the opportunity to get some batting time. We continued to lose wickets at the other end and we couldn't build any partnerships which was key if we were going to chase down their total. There some some flashes of good attacking strokes from David and Daniel but we only managed to build a total of 95 runs off 20 overs.
The post match debrief was objective and focussed on our mental attitude when batting. The key message to the lions was to be more positive and attacking in our batting and to have the self confidence that we can score runs when we are batting at the crease. Daniel and David were two good examples to use because when I told them to focus on hitting the ball a scoring a boundary they hit some wonderful boundaries. Another key message is we cannot go out to bat just to survive at the crease. If we are going to win games against decent teams then we need to score as many runs as possible. There are plenty of runs in every one of our players they just need the positive, have the self confidence and this is something we will focus on in training.
Well done, let's not let our heads drop, there is still plenty of cricket to be played so let's continue to work hard and also enjoy the game.

regards
Paul..