Cricket: Fielding and positive hitting major plusses in another Heywood under 9s win

After their first competitive win last week, Heywood under 9s took to the field on Tuesday 11 June in their second league match versus Unsworth and due to some of the opposition running late they decided to field first.

Heywood started strongly with some very tight bowling and some early wickets. Joe Carter took an impressive catch off his own bowling and followed it up a few overs later with a direct hit to run out one of the Unsworth batters. Heywood kept Unsworth to 230 after a fantastic display in the field.

Overall, the fielding standard was excellent and everyone bowled very tightly, especially Liam Forshaw, Libby Harding and Matthew Barker. The most impressive part of the fielding unit is the backing up and the players have good awareness when they are in the field. Special mention must go to Luke Thulborn, who wicket-kept and did a very tidy job behind the stumps.

Heywood continued to show improvements in the batting department with some smart running between the wickets. It’s encouraging to see the children starting to respect the good balls and putting the bad ball away for four. Everyone batted well in their pairs, particularly Thomas Sullivan and Connor McNally, who managed to get the team past 230 runs.

The final pair to bat was Liam Forshaw and Callum Jackson, who batted very sensibly to ensure they didn’t lose a wicket. The pair scored a valuable 11 runs to take Heywood’s total up to 248 for another victory!

Thank you to all the parents for coming to support again, and to Dale and Riley for taking a training session down at Heywood for those children who were not involved in the match.

It was a well-earned victory for Heywood after losing to Unsworth in their warm-up match a few weeks ago. The team are constantly showing big improvements and they are displaying some real talent.