Junior 2023 Season Review

With the New Year now passing, we take a look back at the 2023 season, with our junior review. Our junior managers took time to reflect on the season as a whole:

U15s

It was a slow start to the season as the first game was cancelled due to the weather and in the second game against Elton we were a long way from our best. However in the next game we were much better against Heywood making it a comfortable win.

In the first section of the season we finished 4^th in the area league but had we been able to play the games that got cancelled due to the weather we would have finished higher. This put us into the GMCL West Div 2 which saw us finish second in the league after an excellent game at Walshaw where we had been beaten earlier in the season.

We put on an excellent 124 for 4 in our twenty overs thanks to a 54 partnership between Tayab and Chris which only ended because Tayab had to retire when he got to 40. We then went on to restricted them to 97 and win the game.

Then came the Summer Cup in our first game we went to Elton again where we had been beaten earlier in the season and put on 112, thanks to a 64 partnership from Adam and Raza. Then due to some excellent bowling we restricted them to 81.

The next game took us to Bradshaw and saw us put on 150 in our twenty overs with an excellent 76 partnership in 7 overs from Sabat and Tayab which saw Tayab score 50 no in 26 balls. This should have been enough for us to win the match but unfortunately due to it becoming to dark to play Bradshaw could only complete 11 of their overs and on count back they just won the match.

However after these two great games it did enough to get us out of the group stage. Then we found ourselves in the final against Greenfield. Greenfield batted first and put on 123 in their 20 overs and while it looked like a score we could get we were always slightly behind the run rate.

It was great this season to see that the runs didn’t just come from one place we had four players who retired on a number of occasions after scoring 40 and three others score in the 30s. Over the season we used sixteen different bowlers rather than relying on 3 or 4 and I am happy to say they all took at least one wicket.

We can’t end a review of the season without mentioning the fantastic parents vs kids game. Which saw some fantastic play from both sides and the commitment from both teams could not be questioned. Thanks to some questionable scoring from a couple of mums who shall remain nameless the game ended in a tie. 

U13s

It felt like a season of two halves for the Under 13s in 2023.  Great weather saw plenty of cricket and training in the early part of the season, followed by almost a complete washout in the second half of the season.  

The first part of the seasonal saw the squad finish 2nd in our Regional Division.    The squad was a real mix of experienced players and a players relatively new to cricket.  

There were some good individual performances with Bat and Ball.  There were 9 separate batting retirements from 6 different players in our Regional games. 

Finishing 2nd meant we were put in Performance League Div 1 - so we would play the top 7 teams in our half of the GMCL (West).    

Every game was tough, but we gave as good as we got and had it not been for the weather, we would have hoped to have finished a respectable mid-table. 

The Weather…..,  pretty much ruined the second half of the season. We had 2 of the Performance games taken by it, and from July 4th we only played one further game - a cup game - against a team from the East Division, which was won comfortably.  

Before the weather came, we did arrange some Development friendlies against some local clubs, which proved to be very beneficial for those involved.  

Whilst the regular season fizzled out but we did have success for some of our squad in the representative teams that played through the Summer Holidays.  

We had 5 members of the squad who represented either the GMCL Interleague teams and the Bury u13s District Team - James, Hasan, Aadam, Harry and Lucas.  All 5 were part of successful representative teams.  

At the end of year presentation night, awards were presented for 
“Most Improved Player”, “Impact Player” and “Overall Player of the Season”. 

Jordan won “Most Improved Player”.  One of our two u11 aged players playing at u13s, he improved loads through the season, making the most of the Development games. 

Lucas won the “Impact Player” award.   Due to other commitments, he was unable to play early in the season but when he was able to play, he had a huge impact with bat and ball in the games he played. 

Hasan took the “Overall Player of the Season” with an outstanding season with both bat and ball.

U11s - to follow