St Edward's School 24 June 2024
Manager Alex Wildman
Match Drawn
St Edwards 240 for 7 dec (Alex Ross 3 for 58)
SOA 170 for 8 (Sam Cross 43)
A glorious late June Monday saw a strong SOA XI arrive at Teddies for our only all day game against a school. Teddies have been strong in previous years, with SOA underperforming, so the match manager considered he could assist proceedings best by staying in the pavilion and offering moral support, rather than taking the field. The Pres accordingly stepped up to skippering, strode out expecting a negotiated toss, called wrongly and broke the news to his team that they would be fielding on a hot day with a flat deck on offer to the SOA bowlers. Zac Wilton and Freddy Selby-Lowndes took the new ball with Freddy taking the scalp of Dylan Driscoll with the score on 29. Wickets fell regularly at the start with Alex Ross and Dave Eaton being the pick of SOA’s attack taking 3 and 2 wickets respectively. However the school’s innings was dominated by a superb, and first ever, century for the Teddies skipper Tarrant. His ton inevitably delayed the declaration too long for the game’s benefit, but it was a big moment for the batsman in what was also his last game for the school, an excellent knock. Teddies 240 for 7 had come from 48 overs.
SOA started positively with Trishan Holder and Shiraz Husain opening but wickets were falling too regularly for the necessary platform to develop for a late innings chase. Ayyaz (23) and Sam Cross (43) both contributed well but it was always going to be a hard total to get to with 12 less overs to bat than our hosts. Bharat chipped in with 26 and Matt Warner and Dave Eaton showed our hosts that a draw was not our aim before time got the better of proceedings and the match was drawn with SOA 70 runs short and 8 wickets down.
Teddies hosted us superbly as ever and our thanks to them, Anton and Gary for umpiring and to Richard our scorer.