Building for the future…

It was an exciting year for junior cricket at the Common with many new faces joining our colts section.

Thanks to the Peter Danes, our late groundsman and life member, we were able to offer free coaching sessions this Summer and it was brilliant to see record numbers of youngsters enjoying cricket at our beautiful ground.

We also took an important step in the club’s development by holding girls only sessions for the first time. We hope to inspire more girls to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Heather Knight and Tammy Beaumont to become World Cup winners, or just enjoy the game in a safe and fun environment.

The Juniors spent the summer practising and developing their skills under the guidance of the coaches and other club members. In the final weeks, everyone particularly enjoyed playing in the annual Kids v Parents/Coaches game which as always, became a competitive affair!

We continue develop players that we can nominate to join the district and county set-ups for their age group and have the long term goal of preparing our juniors to be part of our adult teams of the future. This season, we again introduced new players from our Junior set up into out adult teams and continue to watch others develop as they become more experienced in their cricket careers. As a group of coaches, we are very proud of Luke Rivers and are pleased to see deserved rewards for his hard work specifically winning the best U18 player in the league this year. We are also thrilled to see how three of our other young players, Finn, Murray and Jack settling into adult cricket and taking wickets on Sunday afternoons!

We are very much looking forward to next Summer, especially with the exciting times that lie ahead and we hope the junior section continues to grow and develop in 2022 and beyond!

Sarah Walker, Head Coach and Saturday 2nd XI captain