Written by Swara D, Year 8

On Tuesday the 3rd February, our Under 13 cricket team went to Lord’s to play in the MCC cricket tournament. We were very excited and started off the day by warming up. Since we were one of the first schools there, we had a lot of practice which helped us a lot.

Our first match was against Francis Holland and we won the toss and chose to bowl. After starting with a great fielding and bowling performance, we kept them to a low total. Then, Swara and Neena opened the batting for our team and chased the runs down very well. We won this match by 10 wickets. Our next 3 group stage games were also very similar stories, with incredible bowling and batting performances from everyone in every match. Our hardest group stage game came against Habs but we persevered and managed to win to get into the semi finals.

After having some lunch and having fun around the Lords indoor pitch, we had our semi-final match against Reigate Grammar. We played incredibly well and bowled and batted with intelligence and confidence which resulted in us winning the game. At this point in the day, we knew we had a shot at winning the tournament but knew we had to keep our heads if we were to complete this. We were up against City of London who we knew had a few strong batters and bowlers. Our team batted first and played very well to come out with a defendable total. We knew our bowling attack was very good so we would be able to defend our total if we bowled as well as we could. We didn’t take many early wickets like we had in earlier games but with a couple incredible wickets in a clump, including a diving catch from Swara, we ended up winning the game. We were ecstatic to have won the whole tournament and all went home with smiles on our faces.

Overall, this tournament was a great experience to play against a range of schools and to come out winning as well was great!