Individuals shine in U-13 cricket festival (From Barry And District News)

Individuals shine in U-13 cricket festival

CARDIFF and the Vale's U-13 age group participated in the North Wales Cricket Festival recently, and saw some good individual performances.

The first match was against West Glamorgan. Cardiff and the Vale were put in to bat on a very wet pitch and slow outfield, and were bowled out for 126, with skipper Freddie John top scorer on 48.

Sure enough the sun shone and dried the pitch for West Glamorgan to provide better batting conditions, and they made the required total in 32 overs with Welsh captain Daniel Roberts scoring 54.

Andrew Williams was the pick of the Cardiff and Vale bowlers with figures of 2-14 in his eight overs.

The following day brought Cardiff and the Vale to picturesque Marchweil Cricket Club to face Eryri who won the toss and amassed a mammoth total of 260.

Jordan Cane scored a century helped by some very poor bowling. In reply Cardiff and the Vale reached 212 before running out of overs in what was a good batting performance.

Freddie John made 71 with great support from Michael Lloyd and Andrew Williams, both scoring 33 runs.

In the final game of the group stages, Cardiff and the Vale found themselves facing Pembrokeshire, who were limited to 147 thanks to some excellent bowling from off-spinner Yousef Nadeem (2-47 from 15 overs).

Cardiff reached this total with the loss of just one wicket, and Christopher Lawlor reached his first half century, ending up on 78 not out whilst sharing in a 100-partnership with Freddie John (45 not out).

Cardiff and the Vale ended up in third place in their group, and were matched with Carmarthenshire on the final day.

Cardiff and the Vale bowled out Carmarthen shire for 126 with Yousef Nadeem again bowling outstandingly and taking a hat-trick with final figures of 5-48 from 12 overs. This total should have been manageable, but Cardiff and the Vale fell just short.

Carmarthenshire bowler Hedd Jones also took a hat-trick which concluded an amazing day for the spinners with two hat-tricks in one match!