Sleaford CC Annual Magazine 2017 Sleaford Cricket Club Annual Magazine 2017 | Page 9

1st XI REPORT 2016
Shaun Morris
What is Sleaford Cricket Club’s Philosophy?
In my opinion the “philosophy” is, ‘to promote
young players to senior cricket and want them to
aspire to play 1 st XI cricket.’ Whether you agree or
not, that is what I believe the club is about and
should be about, and I think that last season
reflects this well.
Last season several younger players made their
first appearance for the team having played junior
cricket for Sleaford in the local leagues. Some
cemented their place in the first XI too by taking on
more responsibility and ownership of their game. I
would like to specifically mention Jack Wilson,
Cameron Hall, Kieran Harbron, Ollie Bean and
Mason Mansfield for their contributions throughout
the season. All at some point in the season
stepped up when the team needed them to deliver
a performance. There is no doubt that these play-
ers gained so much from the season, developed
throughout it, and will hopefully continue to im-
prove and perform in the 2017 season.
In the league we were fighting for the title most of
the season but the underlying issue was that we
lost the big games home and away (Bracebridge
Heath and Grantham.) This is something that I
want to rectify in the 2017 season. I am expecting
us to push for the title until the last game of the
season.
Throughout the season we had some terrific per-
formances, notably Tom Shorthouse scoring 162
against Boston and averaging 42.26, and taking
5/42 against Grimsby. Oliver Burford scoring an
impressive 108 against Nettleham and averaging
32.80, and Nick Goacher taking 6/50 against
Skegness.
I also think it is equally important to acknowledge
and thank the more senior squad members for
their help in nurturing the younger talent, and for
their support to me in my first year in the captaincy
role.
The 2016 season was overall a very successful
one with the highlight winning the Winkworth T20
final and going on to represent Lincolnshire cricket
in the regional finals. In that tournament we played
some outstanding cricket and were deserved
winners of the competition in my eyes. Impressive
performances came in the way of Kieran Harbron
taking 4/8 against Nettleham in the semi-finals,
and in the T20 Final against Woodhall Spa, Angus
Youles produced 5/15 and Andy Hibberd scoring
an unbeaten 65 of 41 balls.
One person I have yet to mention is Obus Pienaar
who undoubtedly had the best season by an
overseas that we have seen at Sleaford C.C. I
recall that when a certain Tim McIntosh broke the
league batting record nobody thought that it would
be beaten for some time, but Obus clearly had
other ideas, producing outstanding performances
from the off, scoring a total of 1507 (100’s = 9, 50’s
= 3) at an average of 107.64 and a top score 156
securing the record with a few games to spare.
Thank you to all the players for their hard work on
and off the field. I look forward to another
successful campaign.
Shaun Morris