Chenies U11 Lions win (and retain!) the South Bucks Premier Division Title

Wow, what a season again for the U11 Lions and it’s not over yet as we have the county final left to play against the winners of the North Bucks Premier Division, but with the league season wrapped up this seems an opportune time to reflect on another excellent season for the Lions.

Since being U8s the Lions have trained from Sept – March over the winter so this was an unusual winter with no cricket training due to covid. However, we were able to get a week of pre-season training in with Owais Shah training the team over the Easter holidays so that we could hit the ground running at the start of the season.

The Lions play in the Premier Division in their age group, which is the highest standard of cricket available in the county. They continued on from the previous 4 seasons of success and maintained their 100% winning record at the start of the season with some big wins.

We started in April with our first match away at Gerrards Cross on 26th April being the first junior league match played in Bucks this season. Gerrards Cross had a number of new recruits playing and were very confident that their new team would be too much for us however an excellent team performance saw the Lions win by 38 runs. We followed this up with an away win by 92 runs against a Wendover side containing 4 county boys and then a home win by 86 runs over Amersham.

In early June we played Beaconsfield away from home. Beaconsfield also had 4 county boys, and also a very strange pitch with incredibly short boundaries behind square on the off-side that they were well used to exploiting. However, an inspired spell of 5-12 from Jeevan Brar (the first 5 wicket haul by one of our Lions) and some big shots from Noa Fonseka in the last over of our chase saw us to a 2 run win.

Following this scare the Lions returned to more normal winning ways with a 27 run home win over Chesham followed by a 76 run away win over Amersham, which saw Jeevan Brar score 51no from 30 balls to record the first half-century score by one of our Lions.

At this point the Lions had won 6 from 6, maintaining their 100% winning record, and were well on their way to winning the Bucks South Premier Division. However, our next match was away at Chesham and the weather forecast was very mixed. We lost the toss and Chesham bowled first in dry conditions. As we started to bowl the rain clouds arrived and we were forced to bowl and field in very tough conditions which led to a flurry of wides and no-balls as well as dropped catches and misfields as the kids struggled with a wet ball. Chesham also batted very sensibly to only lose 2 wickets in their 20 overs and win by 22 runs. This result was a shock to the system for the Lions after 4 unbeaten seasons.

This was soon followed by a home game against Beaconsfield and the team bowled well, with an excellent closing spell with a 3 wicket burst from Aarav Majithia to restrict Beaconsfield to 252. We started well with Zac Saul and Jeevan Brar laying a solid platform that saw the Lions reach 249 after 9 overs, only needing 4 runs from 11 overs to win. However, there was then a continuous flow of wickets from the remaining batters with 11 wickets going down in 11 overs and the -6 runs penalty for each wicket saw us slip to a 16 run defeat.

With 2 matches left in the season it was clear that the Lions now needed to win both matches to retain the Bucks South Premier Division title. First up was a home game against Wendover and we were well on top with Wendover needing 49 runs from the last 5 overs but we again found the rain gods against us and the wet ball caused a late flurry of wides and no-balls but we were able to see it home and win by 9 runs assisted by a direct hit run out from Frank Harrop in the last over.

The final game of the season was the league title decider against a Gerrards Cross side which had won 6 matches in a row and had been starting to record big wins. However, the Lions produced their best overall team performance of the season in sweltering heat to record a very comfortable 45 run win. The fielding was outstanding and the batting was very solid as everybody took responsibility for ensuring there was no danger of letting the match slip this time. The Lions showed real strength of character to bounce back from 2 defeats and produce such a brilliant, focussed and composed performance in the decider under pressure to deservedly retain the league title.

It was a brilliant season from the Lions which showed the importance of the depth of the squad as 15 different players represented the Lions over the 10 matches. There were some incredible batting and bowling performances and this was evident as the Lions team was very well represented in the overall county standings.

Some key performances to highlight across the season:

The 20 leading batting and bowling performances in an innings and also the 11 leading batsmen and 11 leading bowlers from our squad of 15 are set out below.

Jeevan Brar topped the batting charts, going through the whole season without being dismissed, and scoring 249 runs at a strike rate of 157 to finish well clear as the leading batsman in his age group in the county. There was excellent support as Zac Saul finished 6th in the county on 107 net runs, Aarav Majithia was 8th with 85 net runs, Neil Chahal 14th on 61;and Oscar Knight and Noa Fonseka 26th and 27th with 36 and 35 net runs respectively.

Jeevan dominates the best batting performances charts as well with 6 of the top 7 innings including the teams first ever half century as he scored 51no from 30 balls away at Amersham. The list also highlights excellent innings from Zac, Aarav, Neil, Oscar and Noa.

Aarav Majithia finished as the leading bowler in the county in his age group with 12 wickets, with some outstanding bowling. He was again well supported by the team with Jeevan Brar finishing 6th in the county bowling rankings despite being the teams main wicket-keeper, Noa Fonseka finishing 10th and Neil Chahal finishing 13th. Oscar Knight finished 33rd , and notably Louisa Peck finished 28th despite only playing 4 games and Rafe Alibhai finished 35th despite only playing 5 games. Rafe ranked 2nd in bowling for the team based on net runs conceded per over bowled, which is particularly impressive for an U10 playing at the highest standard a year up. Similarly, although Reyan Patel only played one match for the Lions his bowling return of a wicket and 2 maidens was brilliant.

Jeevan Brar leads the bowling performances with his 5 wicket haul, but there are excellent 3 wicket hauls from Neil Chahal, Noa Fonseka and Aarav Majithia close behind. There are 11 different players in the top 20 bowling performances (selected based on nets runs with each wicket counting for 6 runs), showing contributions from throughout the team, and Aarav leads the way with 4 performances on the list.

I think that is just about it for summarising the season, but a few thank yous:

• Thank you to the parents for being adaptable through a very different season, transporting the players to training and transporting them to the matches
• Thank you to John Campbell, John Moffitt and all the administrators at the club for ‘getting the game on’ in sometimes strange circumstances
• Thank you to Dave Brown for organising membership, kit etc and also for the bulletin updates each week
• Thank you to Mark Rogers for organising the net booking process, which the squad used to help us hit the ground running
• Thank you to Owais Shah for the coaching sessions for the kids
• Thank you to John Neal, Shanaka Fonseka, Rajesh Chahal, Anooj Majithia, Andy Harrop, Daniel Knight, Shamir Patel, Darren Sear and Wasim Fazel for all the support this season with umpiring, scoring and helping to run net sessions.
• Thank you to Mike Pickard and Chris Wenman for preparing excellent pitches for us to play on.
• And finally to the players – thank you for being so enthusiastic, for being a pleasure to coach, and for playing the game and representing the club in the right spirit.

Raj Brar

1. Jeevan Brar 51* (30 balls) v Amersham (away)
2. Jeevan Brar 33* (15 balls) v Chesham (away)
3. Jeevan Brar 31* (15 balls) v Chesham (home)
4. Jeevan Brar 30* (22 balls) v Wendover (away)
5. Zachary Saul 28* (16 balls) v Amersham (home)
6. Jeevan Brar 25* (13 balls) v Amersham (home)
7. Jeevan Brar 21* (13 balls) v Wendover (home)
8. Noa Fonseka 21* (15 balls) v Chesham (away)
9. Zachary Saul 20* (14 balls) v Wendover (away)
10. Aarav Majithia 19* (10 balls) v Wendover (away)
11. Jeevan Brar 19* (15 balls) v Gerrards Cross (away)
12. Jeevan Brar 18* (12 balls) v Beaconsfield (away)
13. Aarav Majithia 18* (13 balls) v Gerrards Cross (away)
14. Neil Chahal 17 (15 balls) v Amersham (away)
15. Neil Chahal 16 (15 balls) v Amersham (home)
16. Oscar Knight 15* (11 balls) v Wendover (home)
17. Zachary Saul 14* (9 balls) v Beaconsfield (away)
18. Zachary Saul 14* (14 balls) v Beaconsfield (home)
19. Zachary Saul 14 (14 balls) v Chesham (away)
20. Oscar Knight 13* (8 balls) v Chesham (home)

* = no wickets lost so technically average is infinity

1. Jeevan Brar 5-12 v Beaconsfield (away)
2. Neil Chahal 3-4 v Gerrards Cross (away)
3. Noa Fonseka 3-4 v Wendover (home)
4. Aarav Majithia 3-6 v Beaconsfield (home)
5. Oscar Knight 2-3 v Wendover (away)
6. Neil Chahal 2-4 v Amersham (away)
7. Reyan Patel 1-0 v Amersham (home)
8. Aarav Majithia 2-7 v Chesham (home)
9. Rafe Alibhai 2-7 v Beaconsfield (home)
10. Zachary Saul 2-7 v Amersham (away)
11. Zachary Saul 1-2 v Beaconsfield (home)
12. Harry Neal 2-9 v Chesham (home)
13. Noa Fonseka 1-3 v Gerrards Cross (home)
14. William Butcher 1-3 v Wendover (home)
15. Jeevan Brar 1-3 v Amersham (away)
16. Oscar Knight 1-4 v Gerrards Cross (away)
17. Aarav Majithia 2-10 v Gerrards Cross (away)
18. Aarav Majithia 2-11 v Wendover (away)
19. James Henderson 1-5 v Amersham (away)
20. Rafe Alibhai 1-5 v Wendover (home)

1. Win by 38 runs (49 v 11) v Gerrards Cross (away)
2. Win by 92 runs (134 v 42) v Wendover (away)
3. Win by 86 runs (116 v 30) v Amersham (home)
4. Win by 2 runs (90 v 88) v Beaconsfield (away)
5. Win by 27 runs (86 v 59) v Chesham (home)
6. Win by 76 runs (111 v 35) v Amersham (away)
7. Loss by 22 runs (86 v 108) v Chesham (away)
8. Loss by 16 runs (36 v 52) v Beaconsfield (home)
9. Win by 9 runs (82 v 73) v Wendover (home)
10. Win by 45 runs (96 v 50) v Gerrards Cross (home)

Link to League Table/Results - https://buckscbjl.play-cricket.com/website/division/96219