PCA Masters v Essex Academy
Both sides eagerly anticipated the chance to stage this match following the cancellation last year's fixture due to inclement weather. As the players assembled for the 7.00pm start, grey clouds were still circling the County Ground at Chelmsford but thankfully the rain stayed away to allow a hard-fought and competitive contest to take place.
The evening started with a Community Cricket coaching session sponsored by Sodexo involving the Essex U/11 and U/12 girls squads. The Sodexo sponsored PCA Masters were on hand to offer expert advice and the benefit of their cricketing experience. Both Essex CCC and the PCA Masters would like to thank Sodexo for their sponsorship of junior cricket through the PCA Masters.
Having lost the toss, Masters skipper Ian Harvey was asked to bat first and openers Darren Bicknell and Martin McCague got the game underway. The Essex youngsters showed some excellent promise and confidence and at the halfway point of the PCA innings, they had restricted the total to 64-3 with some strong performances from Maurice Chambers (4-1-10-1) and Theeban Tavarasa (4-0-21-2). They were superbly supported by the quality of their ground-fielding and catching which was an outstanding element of the game as a whole.
The experience of the PCA Masters batters begun to show through more effectively in the second half of the innings with major contributions from skipper Harvey (37 from 30 balls) and Paul Prichard (33 not out from 18 balls). The key acceleration to the final score of 171 for 5 was provided by former Middlesex and Somerset star Keith Dutch who clubbed 52 not out from only 30 balls with five fours and three sixes.
In their reply, the youngsters from Essex understandably found the pace and bounce generated by the Masters bowling attack difficult to come to terms with and at the halfway point of their innings, their score stood at 37 for three with Martin Bicknell, current Essex player Graham Napier and Chris Lewis bowling well.
Like the Masters, the Academy side accelerated well in the second half of the innings and an unbroken partnership of 90 between Mervyn Whitfield (71 not out) and Michael Comber (34 not out) got the junior side to 130 for 4 at the conclusion of their twenty overs. The PCA Masters sponsored by Sodexo winning a well contested game by 41 runs.
This game has been a valuable warm up experience for the Masters before their up-coming back-to-back fixtures against the Barbados Masters and also provided the Academy team with an insight into the skills and attributes required for the game at a higher level. They certainly equipped themselves very well in their first game under lights and it can be safely assumed that a number of their players will support Essex and perhaps England well in the future.
The PCA would like to thank the Essex County Cricket Club for hosting this fixture and hopes that the experience of the game will have proven valuable to the Academy players in this and future seasons.
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