9 November 2005
SPORTS REPORT NOVEMBER 2005
Sport has been winding down since half term but there have still been a few events to keep the boys occupied and active.
Basketball
The U16 basketball team can begin my report this time round. They have had a very good year and finished by going up to St George’s for a big tournament held there. In a very competitive event they reached the final only to lose narrowly to the hosts. All in all I think that was a very good achievement.
Cricket
It is easy to get excited about little incidents in sport and a tendency among many people to exaggerate achievements especially as our sporting memories are often very short term. With that in mind I would still suggest that the partnership between Cunningham Ncube and Jack Randle for the U16 A side at St George’s was as fine as any I can remember in 16 years of coaching at this level. Opening the innings, they put on 187 together in 23 overs. Jack was dropped once and I remember each of them playing and missing once early in the innings but otherwise it was almost flawless. The pitch was certainly flat but the bowling was not rubbish. The two of them in their different ways simply batted superbly. Cunningham’s timing and placement was immaculate whilst Jack showed great improvisation and a willingness to ‘go over the top’. Neither of them slogged; it was always genuine cricket shots. The rest of the team did not capitalise on such a fine start but in a very exciting game Falcon managed to win by 9 runs, with both teams totally over 300 runs.
The U15 A and U16 B teams also travelled that weekend. The 16 Bs lost by 60 runs but the 15As improved considerably on previous results against St George’s to lose by only 20, Wisdom Bandura, the top scorer with 68 this time round.
The previous week had seen the last full round of cricket matches, the return games against CBC. I am very pleased to record that the 1st XI made up for their previous defeat with – eventually – a convincing victory. Barry Stewart (85) and Paul Trethowan (41) rescued the team from a poor situation and set a defendable target. Paul with 3 wickets and Barry with 2 were also to the fore in ensuring that CBC never really got close.
The U14 A side also completed a 100% win record for the year which is a great achievement. In their last two matches they convincingly defeated CBC and Petra. Gerald Mashange took 5 more wickets against CBC and Godwill Mamhiyo hit an unbeaten half century at Petra. We trust they will continue to develop in the coming years.
Swimming
We have our swimming gala coming up on Saturday which is obviously a big event in the end of year calendar. A couple of weeks ago we competed in the Inter Schools gala at which we came second to CBC but I don’t have any details of individual achievements.
Water polo
The inter schools events have been completed but we held our junior inter house water polo tournament which was won by George Grey ahead of Oates.
Richard Harrison
9 November 2005