BUZZ 4.2013 TRUE CLASS: Hammersmith & Fulham cricket stars and coaches conquered Lord’s yet again. Front row, left to right: Iona Fairhead, Hannah Allchurch, Araminta Knowles, Aisha Straker-Grimes and Matilda Thomas. Back row: Buddy Mason, Katie Dando, Foxy, Ines Dols-Wong, Sophie Dyson and Mark Mason. Below, the girls at Lord’s
CHAMPS AGAIN! at Lord’s u H&F’s girl cricketers enjoyed a day isgard that they’ll never forget, writes Jon We
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HE borough’s girls’ cricket team have retained their crown as the best young cricketers in London! The team held the coveted Rodney Fitzgerald Trophy in the Balfour Beatty London Youth Games girls’ cricket finals at a hotly contested day of action at Lord’s last month. In their opening tie, the girls, aged 12 and 13, showed their class by putting on a mammoth 129 in their 10
overs for Bromley to chase. Despite a valiant effort, Bromley fell short by 16 runs. Fine batting from Hackney forced Hammersmith & Fulham to chase 114 in the second semi-final. However, H&F showed their mettle to successfully chase down the large target. In the final, the H&F girls showed why they were favourites, posting another huge score against Ealing, just one run shy of their quarter-final total.
Faced with this target, Ealing’s chase got off to the worse possible start, losing three early wickets to leave them 6-3 after two overs. Despite a couple of fine individual efforts, Hammersmith & Fulham were deserved winners. Buddy Mason, the H&F team manager, was delighted with the victory and highlighted the strength of his team’s batting. “I felt always that our batting was pretty strong. But really it was the bowling I was most worried about, and I think in the finals they learned a lot with each game and bowled pretty tight when it mattered.” Mason also noted that with a number of Year 7s in the side, he is hoping they can come back next year and make it three wins in a row. “You don’t want to get too cocky; we won it last year and we won it this year, which is fantastic. A lot of the girls that won it this year will be eligible to play next year. So fingers crossed.” l For more details on the London Youth Games, visit: www.londonyouthgames.org