The U11s had a relaxed practice on Saturday morning followed by some awards for the season. Although some friendlies will be played in the coming weeks, the league is over and the team showed great improvement this year.

Having missed a season due to COVID, all the U11's entered their first year of hard ball cricket in the Easter break. Comments of “Ouch”, “It is too hard” and “that hurt” were widely expressed during warm up catches, which signalled cricket was now serious business.

A call to pad up was followed by "How do the pads go on?", "Where does this funny triangle thing go?" and "Where is a helmet that fits?", while the bowlers constantly heard from the coaches, "Straight arm", “Concentrate on line and length" and "6 of those please". The first matches were quiet, singles were left begging, questions like "So, when I go out there do I stand by those sticks?" and "Is he out?" were key features early on.

Over the season these comments were replaced with loud calling for runs (sometimes too much), walking in with the bowler (need to learn to walk back again) and “Howzat!” was added to the vocabulary.

To sum up, plenty of progression, some fantastic effort and, most importantly, fun had by all. Danny (best batsman), Nathan (best bowler), Jake (most improved) and Harry (champagne moment) may have picked up the awards, however the decisions were difficult given all 19 players improved during the season and made a valuable contribution to the team!