The creation of the Senior Academy in 2020 was aimed at pooling the talents of three very strong year groups and ensuring the structure was organised to optimise playing competitive teams at all times, avoiding clashes of too many games and providing the ability to play on good pitches without duplicating requests through 16s, 17s and 18s which had historically been problematic and had potentially hampered cohesion between the top junior years. More important than all of the above was to maintain and improve the desire of the boys to play in adult cricket and also continue to build leadership skills and be player lead with minimal interference from adults.
The objectives above were mostly met and I am confident In saying that the boys had a great deal of fun playing in the U19s ECB T20 competition and the Surrey Trust. There was also a superb contribution to the adult teams with most of the squad either playing in the 2nd, 3rd or even 1st XI throughout the season.
After a wobbly start in the 19s T20 where a rusty team lost to Wimbledon, we never looked back. Andrew McCallum lead the side by example and after winning a tough group ( Wimbledon, Spencer and Sunbury) we managed to qualify for finals day and win the ECB cup for the first time in Esher history – the team got better and better through the day and match winning exceptional batting by Andrew McCallum and bowling by Freddie Harrison was superbly supported by tremendous all round performances by Adam Koep, Ollie Baker and Brandon James – this was also backed up by superb catches and keeping by Joe Moss that made us comfortable winners in the final, following a tougher semi against Valley End. It should not be forgotten the moment of the season was possibly Charlie Green’s fifty in a must win game against Sunbury – he destroyed a decent attack that included a county spinner and his score off 18 balls made it impossible for us to lose. Jack Fletcher bowled superbly throughout the campaign with pace, movement and bounce and impressed me enormously. Jack has the potential to be a great leader in the 19s next season and play in the top adult teams.
The Sunday Trust team was made up mostly of the 19s squad, which was galvanised and brought together by Charlie Winder who did a sensational job as Captain. We avoided the temptation to play 4 older adult players which the rules allowed and stick to our guns by playing the Senior Academy players only. Whilst this may have been to our detriment in terms of not quite winning our group, we lost out to the Old Ruts 1stXI which contained many adult players. The sense of enjoyment of the boys playing together really did boost their involvement in playing together in the adult teams and was more important than winning. There were also some outstanding performances in convincingly beating Wimbledon twice, Oxted and Trinity. Excellent batting from Andrew McCallum, Jack Slaney, Charlie Winder, Adam Koep and Austin Wilman paved the way for Freddie Harrison, Jack Fletcher and Anwar Khan to bowl teams out. Solid all round contributions were made by Ed Crook, Angus Barrett and Max Simpson throughout the season, with Max hitting a match winning 50 not out in the final game of the season against Epsom college 1stXI.
There were a couple of performances that were really loose and our objective next year has to be to tighten up a touch, learn how to build partnerships and not be quite so cavalier- if we can achieve this without losing the sense of fun and the player lead atmosphere, we should aim to win the Trust league and continue to promote the progression of all these talented boys into adult cricket.
The involvement of all these boys in coaching the young cricketers was a superb idea by Duncan and really did help to build a sense of community and promote all that is good about Esher CC.
A tremendous season – we should reflect on it as just a starting point to further success and many lessons to learn and improve on. The leadership of Charlie and Andrew were the catalyst here and it has been much appreciated along with all the help and support from the adults including Fletch, Pete and Jess for their help in managing, umpiring and scoring.
RGH