Having obtained a bye in the semi-finals of the cup, we came up against our old foes, Winchmore Hill, in the final and despite setting a good competitive total, we were beaten quite soundly when the visitors came to bat and suffered a disappointing result in the end.

This year the league amalgamated the north and east divisions into one premier league which meant the quality of the opposition increased significantly. Faced with several of these teams early on, our league campaign started very slowly with heavy losses to various teams. A constant theme was batsmen getting themselves in and playing nicely before getting themselves out needlessly and not looking at the scoreboard and context of the game enough. The fielding left a lot to be desired as well!

However, the seeds were sown with some strong individual performances culminating in a very close game against Southgate, which we were unfortunate to lose in the last over, followed by our only win of the season in our last match against a powerful Crouch End team (post-match team photo above). That said, we still managed to finish sixth out of the eight teams in what was a very competitive league and only a few points behind the team in fourth.

Coaches wanted at Mill Hill Village Cricket Club

I was pleased to see various existing under-15 team members step up and by the end of the season, the squad was gelling nicely. Overall we used some 18 players, which is a lot and meant constant changes due to unavailabilities, which in itself caused inconsistencies. Special mentions go to Luca who hit 84 not out in the game against Crouch End, Irfan for his tremendous strokeplay and his unplayable fast bowling when he got his line right, Shahid for his all-round ability with both bat and ball as other vital contributions from Shiveen, Jacob, Jayk, Chetinder and Owen. The side was well led by Aryan, who shows a lot of promise for the adults as well, which is pleasing to see.

The standout performer of the season, however, was Michael not only for his calm ability with the bat to take adversity out of several difficult positions he often found himself in when coming to the crease but then needing a calm and assured head on him. He went out to be the top scorer for the season. His keeping skills were a pleasure to watch, and he has continued to show these in adult cricket, which is again great to see. He was therefore rightfully voted the player of the season as a result.

I look forward to next season with renewed hope assuming that we can keep a good core of the existing talent together along with bolstering the ranks with some useful Under-15s coming through.