Cricket

Cricket has continued to go from strength to strength at St Dunstan’s this year with hundreds of pupils involved within the programme. We started our winter cricket academy training programme in September, these sessions took place before school in the nets with Years 10-13 training on a Tuesday morning, and Years 6-9 on a Friday morning.

During the winter, we spent a great amount of time doing technical batting, bowling and fielding and spent a lot of time in the nets on the bowling machines. This hard work through winter saw numbers continue to grow, and we are now at a stage where we will have to split the before school sessions again, to create another morning session to cope! This year saw the first year that we ran a cricket camp over summer, and then two cricket fixtures in September. The idea of introducing a cricket camp and September fixtures is to relieve pressure from exam seasons whilst also encouraging people to join a club over summer, play more cricket and continue working on skill development. We had a really competitive fixture list this year, and got some fantastic results vs Colfe’s, Royal Russell, Ashford, Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar, Cedars, HSBC CC (New Beckenham CC) and our annual fixtures against The Forty Club and MCC. Individual highlights include Will Kay scoring 51* against Marylebone Cricket Club, and Evan N’da-Koffi for scoring two half-centuries and captaining his team excellently throughout the season. Well done to all of those involved. The U12 group captained by Evan N’Da-Koffi had a brilliant season with some commanding results against Colfe’s, Cedars and Ashford, with Luke Rowett, Evan N’Da-Koffi, Laila Humphreys and Adam Ahmad achieving Player of the Match performances in these fixtures. The U13 captained by Yuvraj Singh are also a very exciting group and couple both talented players, with huge levels of engagement. Alfred Davidson, Yuvraj Singh, Nicholas Wilson and Ben Fender produced some standout performances throughout the year. We are very excited by the potential of these two year groups as they progress through the school and become our 1st XI in years to come. Our U14 group captained by Matthew Witham and Hal Elliot enjoyed some really competitive fixtures this season with stand out performances coming from Freddie Humphreys, Matthew Witham, Hal Elliott and Alfie Harper. Our U15s captained by Joe O’Connor-Coffey exceeded expectations this year with their cricket, enjoying the fixtures and putting in all their learning showing their dedication and commitment to the game. Our 1st XI captained by Dan Witham and Joe Shanks were the strongest 1st XI St Dunstan’s have produced in a long time, producing some good performances vs Royal Russell, Marylebone Cricket Club and New Beckenham CC, with stand out performances coming from Will Kay, Krish Patel, Joe Shanks and Dan Witham. Cricket is in a very healthy place at St Dunstan’s, and we look forward to fostering a lifelong love of the sport and ensuring pupils continue to engage with cricket after leaving the College.

Mr L Corbin O’Grady

Coordinator of Cricket