A Tough Loss For Colne Away at Coggeshall Our Colts team travelled the huge distance to the Earls Colne Airfield for an away fixture against Coggeshall U13. With the coaches and umpire mistaking a glimpse of sun for warm weather the game was played in very cold and windy conditions on a wicket that looked more at home in the Caribbean. We knew that this was going to be a tough fixture against a side who have years of match practice experience ahead of us, but undaunted captain Alex Morrison elected to field first. Colne took to the field with a debut for Callum Tracey as wicketkeeper and Luke Mayes,William Hedger and Matthew Wooldridge all starting for the first time. The captain led by example and started off with a wicket with his third ball bowling MILLER for 0. Matthew Halls was equally tight from the other end and after Coggeshall soon found themselves 20 for 2 off the first 5 overs when Alex again bowled MITCHELL for 0. With a good effort in the field just to stay warm the fielders were kept busy as WISHART 47 and DOUBLEDAY 43 pushed Coggeshall up to a healthy total. The change bowling of Luke MAYES and Matthew WOOLDRIDGE did well to restrict the scoring, Matthew in particular as a year 5 bowling to 12 year olds did very well. Taylor Nicholson and Jordan Steed then came on, with Taylor picking up the wickets of WISHART and McCABE 6 with some nice straight deliveries. Overall a good effort in the field against strong batting, a special mention to Callum Tracey for his excellent debut as wicketkeeper. Bowling figures: A Morrison 4 overs 2 wickets for 9 runs M Halls 4 overs 0 wickets for 19 runs M Wooldridge 4 overs 0 wickets for 23 runs L Mayes 2 overs 0 wickets for 20 runs T Nicholson 4 overs 2 wickets for 27 runs J Steed 2 overs 0 wickets for 20 runs.
After a quick tea which would have been helped by having a nice log fire to warm up the now freezing coaching staff, we then took our turn to bat.
Much had been made before the game of the two opening bowlers for Coggeshall Docherty and McCabe. On a wicket offering low bounce and in poor light they exploited the Colne top order ruthlessly. With the first 5 batsmen all departing for 0 we looked on for our first run. In fairness to the top 5 batsmen the bowling was very good above anything they would have experienced before but hopefully all will have learnt the value of playing forward and straight rather than across the line and back. Callum Tracey then got the biggest cheer off the day when he scored a nice single down to third man. Showing others how to get forward he occupied the crease nicely supported by Will Hedger who did likewise before being surprised by a delivery onto his foot. Morgan then joined Callum but departed instantly after trying to pull to leg a straight ball. The captain who was unsure if he would have batted, now came out and began to frustrate the Coggeshall attack with his pronounced leaves outside off stump and stout defence. He then began to open up with a boundary and looked to hit the bowling through the leg side with a variety of shots. Luke Mayes supported Alex with some nice soft hand defence shots and with a bit more luck would have connected with some shots before departing towards the end. Matthew Wooldridge now joined Alex for the last wicket and played sensibly before Alex tried to force some more runs and was bowled for a top score of 7.
We must all remember that this is still very early days for us and lessons will be learnt along the way. We now need to reflect on where we can improve and as the season progresses we will be stronger for this experience. A good team effort which again had encouragement throughout the game by all. Earls Colne all out for 19 runs Coggeshall 121 for 4