Cumbria County Cricket Club’s Development Team battled their way to an excellent win at Keswick Cricket Club, writes Ben Challis.
They defeated the Indian touring side from the Vengsarkar Cricket Academy by just 18 runs in a very competitive 40 over match played in glorious Cumbrian sunshine.
This was the last match for the visitors in their two-week visit to the UK and all are from legendary Indian test batsman Dilip Vengsarkar’s Mumbai Academy, and represent some of the very best young Indian cricket talent.
This was an impressive win for the Cumbrian young guns who put in real skill and effort to bat and bowl well to take the win.
Cumbria opened the batting and, thanks primarily to a superb innings from Reegan Scott (who scored 76), Josh Mackie (32) and George Willan (25), and set a challenging if catchable target of 194 the visitors.
Molhotra and Kolla each took two early wickets for the Academy side, but the damage was done by Amit Raje who took 4 Cumbria wickets for 22 runs from 8 overs.
In reply the Mumbai hotshots started well with S Reddy Chinnapolu putting in some big hits, and for the first half of the second innings the visitors were on target to catch the Cumbrians.
With Reddy Chinnapolu gone on 61, bowled by Sam Murdock, and Palli (32) caught by wicket keeper Freddie Newton from the bowling of Ethan-Hardie Knight, the Indian side stuttered, but Vardhan Moola steadied the ship and made it to 48 before falling to the bowling of Josh Mackie, and Cumbria’s Lewis Edwards produced some excellent bowling to clean out the Indian tail enders with an impressive 3 wickets for 21 runs off 5 overs, matched by Hardie-Knight’s 3 wickets for 36 runs off 8 overs, and captain Josh Brown’s 2 wickets for 31 runs off 8 overs.
The visitors had made it to 176 as the final wicket fell, and the young Cumbrians could celebrate an impressive 18-run win.
After the match, Sam Sharp the Cumbria CCC player who is also part of the development team’s coaching group led by Cumbria CCC head coach Paul Hindmarch said: “The game at Keswick against Dilip Vengsarkar’s Academy was again a great occasion, and they are an extremely talented set of lads, extremely passionate about the sport, and the game with them is always played in the best spirit.
“I think our Development side is doing what it is designed to do – which is develop younger cricketers to progress in the county circuit and eventually into the first team.
“The team in my view keeps getting better and better, they are all talented young cricketers, and they’re performing well.
“A great example is Reegan Scott. He scored a brilliant 76 runs, and bowled beautifully against some seriously talented batters, and I feel his spell of bowling swung the game yesterday, in our favour.
“Unfortunately this is probably our final game of the summer, but I feel the group has learnt a lot through the season, they can take a lot back to their club sides, and continue their own development and keep knocking the door down on the first team in the coming years.
The umpires were Graeme Cross and Gordon McCullough, and the scorer was David Simpson.
