Weekend preview – 2nd/3rd September
It’s the nineteenth weekend of the competitive season and despite a lack of league fixtures we have two massive games coming up.
On Saturday the U15s are playing at the Home of Cricket against Banstead in the ECB u15 National Final. Banstead currently play in the Surrey Championship and are no strangers to winning this competition. In 2000 the club defeated Diss CC in the national final at Basingstoke by 4 runs having scored 115 for 6 in the first innings. On the road to Lord’s our U15s have defeated Stewart’s Melville, Grange, Perth Doo’cot, Gordonians, Chester-le-Street, New Rover, Eckington and Leamington. In the National semi-final the Arrows won the toss and chose to bat first. The young Arrows were indebted to 38 from Oli Stones which formed the cornerstone of a slightly sub-par looking total of 98 for 9 from their 20 overs. Lewis King (18), the Fergus Foley (14) and Aadi Khadse (10) also made useful contributions. With the ball Ferg Foley struck in the first over and younger brother Hamish claimed a wicket to reduce Leamington to 4 for 2 after 2 overs. The Warwickshire side consolidated and were well placed going into the 10th over when Hector Murray broke the partnership to leave them 44 for 3 at the halfway stage. Josh Cully then claimed a wicket and tight bowling restricted Leamington to 78 for 4 with 2 overs to go. Ferg Foley came back and bowled an excellent over, picking up 2 wickets and giving his brother 19 runs to defend off the last. That over yielded 2 runouts and a wicket and only 2 runs to give Carlton U15s a 16 run win. This will be the first time a Carlton junior side has featured at Lord’s.
The Women’s 2s are also in action on Saturday as they travel through to East Kilbride.
On Sunday the First XI also have a National Final of their own. The side will take on a familiar foe in the shape of Forfarshire at New Williamfield. The sides most recently met in the Scottish T20 Cup in the final of the 2021 edition where the Arrows ran out winners chasing down Forfarshire’s total of 103 with 6 wickets to spare. In this year’s semi-final against Falkland at New Williamfield the Fifers won the toss and chose to bat first. Lewis O’Donnell struck in the first over and then when Hugo Southwell came on to bowl the 4th over he picked up 2 wickets including the Falkland pro. Angus Beatie claimed another wicket in the 5th over to put Carlton firmly in control and then struck again in the 9th to leave Falkland 37 for 5. Arun Pillai then chipped in with a wicket in the 12th over to make it 46 for 6. David Saul took 3 wickets with his leggies and a runout completed the innings as the Fifers were bundled out for 66 in the 16th over. In reply Tom Simpson (15); Ru Main (12) & Daniel Da Costa (13) all got starts leaving it to Hugo Southwell (7*) and Shujaa Khan (13*) to see the Arrows into the final with a 7 wicket win in the 14th over. For more details about our history with Forfarshire head to Fantasy Bob’s latest edition of the Arrow newsletter.