There are positives in Counties loss

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29: Saturday’s Western Counties match against Willow Cuts was definitely a learning experience for Warwick. We played eight youngsters, five of which were Colts and I was proud of how they never gave up despite losing by 348 runs.

Cricket is played from the first ball to the last ball. They knew they were going to be up against it when playing a top team like Willow Cuts, but this was a good experience for them.

We had them 4-35 and then Malachi Jones hit his second ball that should have been a routine catch and then he gets 175,  a good lesson to learn — catches win matches. We could have been 5-35 and then it would have been a whole different game.

We dropped Malachi and (Ricky) Hoyte four times each. During the season, we had done a good job with our catching, but the pressure of the Counties match got to them.

You could see in some of their eyes they were scared and had a look of “Don’t let the ball come to me’.

That’s what happens when you are young, but I imagine with this experience under their belt they will be better equipped to handle the pressure next year.

The most disappointing thing was we only got 67 runs. We didn’t battle while we were at bat.

The wicket was pretty good — as evident by Willow Cuts 415.

No one from Warwick stuck it out and that’s where the senior players have to step up. In a case like this, they have to make the runs to help the youngsters out as they were just not ready for this level of play.

If one of the youngsters get 15 or 20 runs, that’s a pretty good score for them under the circumstances.

We bowled well, we just didn’t bat well.

They fought all the way to the end though and that a positive.

We had a good talk afterwards and then the next day we bounced back and got a win.

And that’s how cricket is — one day you are down, and the next day we’re up.

I was very proud of them as some teams when they lose a Counties game they can’t field a team the next day.

Sunday was a new day and they came away with a win.

A couple of the youngsters got their highest score for the season. The victory helped us move up to fourth place.

Just one example of that is Korshun Durrant.

He is one of our better youngsters. He is very aggressive player. His technique still needs some work but he is a player who likes to play shots and can hit the ball to the boundary.

He still needs to work on his defence.

He got bowled on Saturday and then on Sunday he got his highest score. He’s one of the youngsters people should keep their eye on for the future. He really has a bright future.

India

India did a rare thing this week — it won the Under-19 World Cup and they now hold both the senior and junior World Cup trophies.

We got to witness a lot of good cricket the last two weeks at the Under-19 World Cup.

The standard was very high — this just shows the level Bermuda should be striving for.

The fact that India won it on Australia made it even better because they are not used to bouncy balls and the way it turns there.

India’s legion of cricket fans have to be very pleased with this result. With the team having lost some players to retirement and Tendulkar not far behind, they have a good crop of replacements coming up that will bring them glory.

It was great that we could see that on TV in Bermuda — it was world class.

I know the youngsters at Warwick were talking about the plays and the games.