It’s a very exciting time for cricket at St Helen’s with increasing numbers of girls taking part all year round – and over 35 girls involved in the Oxfordshire Cricket Pathway. So far this year we have run a comprehensive cricket programme, with hardball indoor nets before school on offer for Years 7 and above, as well as a softball session targeted towards our ECB Indoor Competitions.
This term we hosted all county initial rounds and finals across U13 and U15 age groups in Oxfordshire, with five teams from St Helen and St Katharine taking place across six days. Both our A teams were successful in progressing to the regional round early next term at Edgbaston.
Looking ahead to Trinity term, we have a packed out fixture schedule: national cup fixtures for U15 and U18 age groups with a wide range of softball and hardball friendlies for all years against both local schools and well-renowned schools in the region. We are looking forward to the improving weather and some hugely competitive fixtures next term. Our U13 Captain Niamh gives her thoughts below…
Mr Herbert, Head of Cricket
The U13A team have already qualified for regionals at Edgbaston. With an excellent beginning to the tournament, we went unbeaten bowling every team out for under 70 runs. That tournament flew by and we qualified for the county finals alongside Oxford High School (OHS).
We started off strong with our bowling, batting and fielding doing us well. Then we played our own B team who also qualified. In fact, our lowest score with the bat was against our B team in the county final rounds – but we never scored below 100, which is something to be proud of. Our fielding is definitely one of our strongest features to reduce all the runs we can.
Without being beaten we made it through to the final against OHS. We batted first and scored a defendable total. Going into the second innings strong with fielding extremely well and wickets falling quickly. At the end of the match we beat Oxford High, bowling them all out. Everyone did so well, I’m so proud!
Niamh, Year 8 Cricket Captain
