General

The U17s had a fine season finishing second in the league and reaching the final of the cup. This was a great side to manage and all of the squad played well at different times. Scott Hammerton captained the side fairly and thoughtfully at all times. Without doubt this is one of the strongest squads I have seen in recent years and I hope that most of the players move on to play adult cricket for the club. Although there were only 10 under-16s or 17s, it did have the benefit of a stable squad since when available all players played in all games. It also gave some of the under-15s a good chance to play at a higher level.

Fielding

Since all of the team performed well in the field well this year it is hard to pick out individuals. Special mention to Luke Cotterill, Scott Hammerton, Paul Dobbs and Ian Antonio who fielded well all season, to Paul Fleckney who worked hard to improve, and to Mark Thomson for his efforts behind the stumps.

Bowling award

Good performances were put in throughout the season by Amadeep Gill, Bilal Khan, Simon Cook, Scott Hammerton and Luke Cotterill. A long way ahead in the number of wickets taken this Summer was Sam Langworth, whose 10 wickets came at a very impressive 12 runs per wicket. This was a great effort by Sam and he fully earned the bowling award. 

Batting award

There were few high scores made by the players, though nearly everyone made a good contribution at some time throughout the season. I think most of the under-17s know they could have performed a little better individually but as a team they did well. Special mention to Lee Cousens for his effort in the Cup Final against Sunbury, scoring half of the team’s run against extremely good bowling, and to Himesh Patel who whilst only an under-15, scored 46 not out in one of the games. A long way ahead in the averages this year and batting award winner was Simon Cook. Simon top scored with 79 not out against Hampton Wick Royal and ended up the season with an average of 32.

Manager’s award

It is very hard to be fair to everyone, to give all players the correct amount of bowling and to place them in the correct places in the batting order, whilst also trying not to lose games. Scott Hammerton again proved that he is more than able to captain a side in a sensible and mature way.

Paul Cousens
U17s manager

Colts U15 Report 2005

General

The Ashford U15s team had a fairly average year. All of the boys played at least six games with most of them playing over 10 games. The team, captained very competently by Alex Jackson, finished fourth out of six in their division. Two new players, Himesh Patel and Iffy Anwar, made a positive difference to the side’s batting and bowling and helped to enhance the overall quality of the team. Some of last year’s players showed a large improvement with many individual performances being better than previous years.

Fielding

Most of the team fielded with enthusiasm and put in a lot of effort. Amongst others, Himesh, James Wheeler, whether keeping or fielding, Charlie Cotterill and Matt Dodds all constantly fielded well. A special mention to under-13 Daniel Rose, who filled in regularly when we were short of players and showed some of the older boys how fielding should be done!

Bowling award

Fourteen players bowled in the games we played. Wicket-takers included Iffy Anwar, Himesh Patel, Jack Brown, Shaun Cousens, James Wheeler and Hamod. A long way ahead in the bowling figures were Alex Jackson and Graham Doggett. Alex Jackson took 12 wickets at 17 runs per wicket. Slightly ahead was Graham Doggett who took 13 wickets at an average of 16. Graham also gave away the fewest runs per over. I was very pleased to be able to give this award to Graham. He made a real effort in the nets and worked on and improved his fielding from last year. He always opened the bowling, therefore bowling against the opponents’ better batsmen. On top of that Graham was one of the younger members of the team.

Batting award

There were good contributions from many players including Matt Dodds, Jack Brown, Iffy Anwar, James Wheeler and Elliott Smith. The main problem throughout the season was consistency. The good performances were not repeated as often as necessary to ensure we won more games. In most games we relied on four consistent players to achieve reasonable score for the team. Jo Lewis scored nearly 100 runs and this was a huge improvement on previous years. Himesh Patel batted very well scoring 186 runs at an average of 17.

Two other players, Alex Jackson and Shaun Cousens, scored virtually the same runs as each other, both scoring over 220 runs. Alex Jackson scored his runs at an average of 22.9 with a top score of 56. Alex batted with a lot of common sense and often turned a game that was running away from us into one where we had a chance. Shaun Cousens played in a similar way and top scored with 89 not out. Due to the fact that he played fewer games Shaun’s average was higher and he scored at an average of 27.5. Therefore this year’s batting award went to Shaun.

Manager’s award

This was not too difficult for me to decide this year. Alex Jackson was only a few runs away from winning the batting award and two wickets away from winning the bowling award. Alex captained the side well, fielded with enthusiasm and led by example all season. This was a well-deserved award for Alex.

Thanks

I would like to say a huge thank-you to Steve Brown, Ikie Gill and Kevin Antonio. They made my life easy this year by all helping with the training of the Under 15s and Under 17s on a weekly basis. They turned up for most of the games to help with umpiring and scoring. The time and effort they all put in were greatly appreciated.

Thanks are also due to Mike Rose and the Doggett family for their help with scoring when needed.

Keith Cook award

As most of you will remember, Simon Cook’s father, Keith, passed away two years ago. One of the things that Keith would regularly speak to me about was the behaviour of colts and the effort made by individuals. With Simon’s mother’s agreement, Ashford C.C. presents a ‘Keith Cook’ award each year to one of the older boys in the colts who has shown the qualities that Keith appreciated in the game. When thinking about this award this year I also took into consideration the ability to be part of a team and behaviour in matches and training. I also looked for improvement and the reasons why there had been an improvement. One boy had only been playing regular cricket since this year and he improved throughout the season. He took 6 wickets for the Under 15s and as the season went on, he made a real effort to listen to the coaches and improve his batting.

It is an honour to win this award and it gave me great pleasure to present it to Iffy Anwar, one of our new players this year.

Paul Cousens
U15s manager

The season started off with 28 boys turning up for the first training session, with this in mind we were hoping for good competition for places in the team. As training progressed the team practically picked itself, leaving just a few places up for grabs. Our first opponents were Wycombe House in the cup. Going into the game we were quietly confident of winning through to the next round, but we were soon dealt our first blow of the season as we were knocked out of the cup.

With little time between this defeat and our first league game, a few minor adjustments to the training session and a couple of changes to the team were made before we travelled to face Richmond away. An excellent performance in the field gave us a fighting chance with the bat, but we fell short of our target by just seven runs. We went into our next game as underdogs against Twickenham, this time our batsmen backed up the continued good fielding by putting in some great individual performances to secure our first win of the season.

Seeking revenge for our earlier cup defeat, we faced Wycombe House next in the league. However, with a few key players missing we were taught a cricketing lesson as we failed to win this contest too. We then faced archrival Sunbury. With our confidence dented, we competed with renewed vigour and our bowlers, supported by some great fielding, tore into the Sunbury boys. Unfortunately, again we fell just short of our 118-run target. Next we welcomed Richmond, who thinking the game would be a push over, met an Ashford side boosted by team spirit and our boys rallied determined to win, which they did. However, this win was followed by another defeat to Twickenham. And a third fixture against Wycombe House saw no change from the previous results, but this narrow loss by two runs on the last ball marked the start of a great run for the side.

We approached the next game against Sunbury with a strong team and our confidence sky high. Everything fell into place with some superb individual performance with the bat. This was followed up with some of our best bowling, which sent Sunbury home with a 30-run defeat and ensured we finished a respectable third in the league.

Into the second half of the season, and a convincing victory over Windsor was followed by a thrilling win against East Moseley. This remarkable game went to the last ball with Ashford winning by one run in the dark. Holiday commitments meant that we fielded weakened teams in the remaining two games against Egham and Valley End, both of which ended in crushing defeat and proved to a disappointing end to a good year. One high point of the season for the coaching and management team was that Shaun Cousens was picked to play for the Southeast of England, which shows that as a club we are making great progress. Congratulations to Shaun.

The Best Bowling Award for the U13s was awarded to Harry Jackman.

Shaun Cousens won the Best Batting Award for the U13s.

The Manager’s Award was shared by Daniel Rose and Andrew Tippell.

Thanks go to all the parents who supported and helped out on match days, making 2005 a fun season for players, coaches and parents.

Mike Rose & Kevin Lambert
U13s manager and coach

Colts U12 Report 2005

The overall breakdown for the U12 team this season:

Played 8   Won 3   Lost 5   Forfeited by opponents 1   Abandoned (rain) 1

2005 was, in my view, a very average season for the u12 team, looking at the stats over the season, it is obvious where we let ourselves down.

We got off to a flying start with a convincing eight-wicket win against Wycombe House. Then in our second game we had Sunbury struggling on 51 for 6 wickets, but they managed to scrap to 92 after 20 overs. Although a gettable total, Ashford lost by 23 runs!

Looking at our batting only four lads managed double-figure averages: Stef D’adamo (24.2), Ben Brown (20.66), David Merchant (17.50) and Daniel Darroch 12.75. The nearest to these were Freddie Cottrell (9.42), Daniel Moss (7.28) and Harry Jackman (7.00).

Our bowling in general was very good. David Merchant was lead wicket-taker with 13 wickets at 8.15, with good support coming from Jasraj Sanghera (11 wickets at 10.27), Jamie Watson (10 wickets at 13.4) and Harry Jackman (7 wickets at 17.85). Other bowlers who chipped in with some wickets included Andrew Tippell (3), Ben Brown (2), Daniel Moss and Jiwan Gill (1 each). Other lads who I need to mention are Ian Doggett, who kept wicket in all but two games, and Furqan Bhullar who contributed some useful runs batting down the order.

The Best Batting award for the U12s was awarded to Stef D’adamo.

The Best Bowling for the U12s went to David Merchant.

The Managers award for the U12s was awarded to Ben Brown (second-best batting average, two wickets, four catches and a run out).

A huge thank-you to Elaine Doggett for scoring in all but two games, also thanks must go to the coaches Kevin Lambert and Mike Rose, to Sue Moss, Sukhi Sanghera and Peter Cottrell who helped in various ways throughout the season as well as to all the other parents who helped ferry the boys to various locations during the year.

David Merchant
U12s manager

The U11s had a fantastic season: a second place finish in the league and runners-up in the Jim Warden Trophy.

Our highlight of the year must be reaching the final of the Jim Warden Trophy, a first for an Ashford team. Although we did not win, I am sure that if the team play with the same team spirit next year they can go one better.

There were numerous highlights for me, one of which came during the game at East Molesey when a ball was hit toward the boundary and three of our fielders converged on it. One flicked the ball back for another to pick up and throw back to the top of the stumps. Whereupon looking around there were two other players ready to back up the throw. This to me showed that all the hard work the lads were putting in on a Friday night was paying off.

Other highlights include seeing Stef D’Adamo and Ian Doggett turn out in adult games during the summer; Ian even out scored Chris Davies, the 1^st team captain, in a game. And Joe White, whose approach to matches exemplified the true spirit that cricket should be played in – he was run out in every innings that he played but never complained.

I think that one thing that has stood out all summer has been the way in which the boys have all played as a team, always encouraging each other through their matches, and I am sure this will continue next year at U12s level.

Our Best Batsman this year was Stef D’Adamo who scored 159 runs at 18.

Our Best Bowler this year, taking 8 wickets at an average of 17, was Jasraj Sangahera.

The Manager’s award this year went to Richard Hill, the player who we thought had improved the most this season.

Mark Doggett
U12s manager

Colts U10 Report 2005

2005 has been, I hope, a very enjoyable season for the under 10s. For most of the boys and girls it was their first time playing with a hard ball, which can be quite daunting. We played ten matches and won two of them. However, at this age it is far more important that the children enjoy playing cricket and hopefully will want to continue playing in future years.

This season, three boys – Diljeet Gauray, Abbas Kausar and James McKenna – were put forward for West Area trials and all were selected to play for the area. Matthew Frost, who regularly opened the batting with Abbas, also kept wicket admirably throughout the season was also put forward for the trial but was unfortunately unable to attend. Amber Cousens, who in one game took 3 for 7, is also playing for Surrey Ladies’ under 10s. So there is a lot of talent waiting and hopefully wanting to be nurtured over the next few years.

The awards for the season were shared between Diljeet Gauray, Abbas Kausar and James McKenna. Abbas and James both scored over 50 runs in total. Abbas had three double figure scores and James two scores over 20 including a 25 not out retired. However, for batting Diljeet overshadowed the others scoring 98 runs at 19.6, including two scores over 20 as well as a 25 not out retired. He also had two not out scores of 19 and 12. Well done Diljeet. For bowling all three of the boys took the same number of wickets and bowled superbly all season. All bowl quick and accurately and are as good as any other bowlers in the league. However, only one can win the award and it went to Abbas. Lastly the Manager's award, again all three boys were a pleasure to have in the team. As mentioned all bat, bowl and field superbly to the same high standard. Therefore it was only fair that the Manager's award went to James.

At the end of season awards evening, in addition to the above mentioned awards, medals were presented to Matthew Frost for his excellent batting and wicket keeping (he also took two wickets in one game when he wasn't keeping), and Joseph Balmer and Amber Cousens for their bowling. Amber was involved in one of my favourite moments of the season when her and Francis White, neither of whom had scored a rum previously, put on 30 – albeit quite a few of those were extras – for the last wicket against Hampton Wick to nearly win us the game.

I hope everyone will enjoy next season and I would like to thank all the children and their parents and other relatives for their support over the season.