Edinburgh U14s qualify for the National Finals at Arundel Castle

As a result of an away win over Durham and a bowl out victory over Glasgow by two hits to one during July, Edinburgh U14s qualified to make their first appearance in the National Finals of the Lord's Taverners Inner Cities Cup which were held from 11th to 14th August.  The venue for the Finals, which were being held for the 14th time, was Arundel, Sussex with a base at the historic Arundel Castle ground.
 
Edinburgh have been attempting to reach this stage of the competition since 2005 so, as first timers at Arunde, it was perhaps no surprise that they did not record a victory in their four matches. However, they so impressed the organisers, umpires and coaches allocated to the sides by Arundel Castle Club with their attitude, enthusiasm and fielding skills that they won the Ken Lawrence Trophy for the most sporting team.
 
Although this is an U14 event, Edinburgh were both the youngest and smallest team taking part as the thirteen player squad contained only three who were already aged fourteen and of the remainder four are just twelve. This augurs well for the future of East youth cricket and it is a bonus for the development of the game that ten of the Finals squad attend Local Authority schools in Edinburgh.
 
Their matches in Sussex were against Cardiff, Coventry and Northampton, in that order, in a four team group followed by a classification match against Bradford, their opposite numbers in another group of four.  As Cardiff finished as tournament runners up and did not lose as many wickets as the eight Edinburgh captured until their defeat in the final by Sunderland, the city boys' performance looks better in retrospect than it did immediately afterwards.
 
The loss of early wickets against both Midlands sides made Edinburgh's task hard in these games but they were not disheartened and gave their all in the classification match before going down to their opponents from Yorkshire by three wickets with only one ball of the thirty over match left unbowled. Having begun to come to terms with the differences in the wickets the batting was more assured in this final contest and the bowlers and fielders battled hard throughout the opposition innings.
 
The players greatly enjoyed their trip and the experience gained will serve them well as they move on through the age group ranks. Away from the matches the group were taken on a morning visit to the County Ground at Hove where Sussex were playing a championship match. There they inspected the match wicket, visited the Board Room, operations control room and the scorebox all thanks to the good offices of their allocated coach, Brian Jeffries who had quickly became an integral part of the group. However, most of the squad would rate the highlight of that excursion as either the visit to the Newbery bat factory shop where all the playing members put the stickers on a bat which is now awaiting purchase by a member of the public or getting the autograph of Luke Wright.
 
Results:
 
Qualifying Group:
 
Durham 91 all out in 22 overs (A. J. Sadler 3/9, R. A. Macpherson 3/19)
Edinburgh 92/7 in 20.5 overs.
 
Edinburgh beat Glasgow 2-1 in a bowl out.
 
National Finals - Group B
 
Cardiff 167/8 in 30 overs (T. Morgan 82; R. A. Macpherson 2/15, E. M. Everett 2/28)
Edinburgh 77 all out in 23.2 overs (C. P. Everett 38) at Arundel Town No. 1
 
Edinburgh 98 all out in 27.4 overs (R. E. A. W. Simpson 28; S. Harriman 5/20)
Coventry 99/3 in 21 overs (J. McArthur 25*; E. M. Everett 2/14) at Clymping C. C.
 
Edinburgh 122/8 in 30 overs (R. E. A. W.  Simpson 33; F. P. Allardice 22*; A. Durno 3/12, P.Harmersley 3/20)
Northampton 125/2 in 21.2 overs (J. Ball 52*) at Arundel Castle
 
7th/8th Play Off
 
Edinburgh 113/5 in 30 overs (R.  E. A. W. Simpson 31, B. M. Scott 24, D. H. Player 23)
Bradford 114/7 in 29.5 overs (S. Butt 23, B. Williamson 22; F. P. Allardice 2/11) at Arundel Town No. 2