SRH Fram started off with an excellent performance to beat Westwood School from Cambridge. The star performance of this match was Charlie thumping 27 off one over. Our 2nd match was a closer contest against National Finalists from last year (St Mary's from Essex). We managed to win by 13 runs largely due to Ryan taking 3 wickets in his over.
We then moved into the quarter finals. We played Cambridgeshire Champions: Rackham School. This was a very exciting finish. Fram batted first getting a good score of 254. After looking in control Fram nearly let it slip in the last 2 overs. However, captain Josh Cantrell bowled a superb last over for Fram to sneak into the semi finals by 1 run.
SRH went into the semi final knowing that one more win would put them into the Regional Final and automatic qualification for the Nationals. The match was against last year's champions (Thomas Gamuel School from London) and proved to be a rollercoaster of excitement and emotions. Thomas Gamuel had some very tall and big hitting batsmen (they had easily won all of their other matches) but Fram bowled and fielded brilliantly. We kept them down to a score of 233 - their lowest ever score according to their teacher. Fram steadily knocked off the runs with Charlie again putting us in a strong position with 6 boundaries. However, a late order collapse sent panic through the team and spectators (Mrs Elphick was there supporting us and was getting very nervous). Gus Whitely faced the last ball knowing that we needed just 1 run and their star bowler knowing that they needed to get Gus out. The ball was really fast and flew past Gus and wide of the stumps to the boundary for 4. Everybody just went wild in celebration. We could not believe that we had actually made it through to the Nationals.
We still had one more match to play. The Regional Final was against William Austin School from Luton (Bedfordshire). They are a very large school (650 children) from a mainly Asian area so this was great experience for our boys. We bowled first and had to face some very big hitting. They hit 5 sixes and we thought that we would be chasing a huge total. Billy Evans and Harry Dyer both bowled well to take wickets and peg back their score to only 239. Fram now faced the best bowling they had seen all season and were batting in a pressurised situation. We got to within 4 runs of their total but fell just short in the last 2 overs. Finishing runners up in the East of England (5000 Primary Schools taking part starting at local competitions) was a great achievement.
The Nationals are to be played next Wednesday on the County Cricket Ground in Derby - see pictures below. This again will be great experience for the boys to enjoy playing against teams from places like Yorkshire, Birmingham, Newcastle and other parts of the country.
