St Mary’s took part in the Northumbria Schools Hardball Cricket Festival today. The school’s two teams took on St Cuthbert’s, with the Year 7 team up first to play. St Cuthbert’s won the toss and opened the batting, but were limited early on by Jack Pilling and Muizz Sheikh. St Cuthbert’s batted well and managed to make a total of 98 runs from their 12 overs. St Mary’s began well, but some good bowling removed Hashim Ali, Jake Davison and Jonjo Block. Despite strong play from Jack Pilling and Luke Ashcroft, St Cuthbert’s were comfortable winners by 54 runs.

The Year 8 team from St Mary’s won the toss and decided to bowl first. Ross Ward and Shazhib Saleem bowled brilliantly early on. St Cuthbert’s scored heavily in the middle part of their innings, but Ross returned to take a wicket in the last over. St Cuthbert’s finished on 102. Matthew Brown and Shazhib opened the batting for St Mary’s, and Matthew started well with some powerful hitting. Both were eventually bowled out, but their replacements, Tobin Togy and Ross Ward, formed a good partnership. Ross retired on a well-made 33* and Tobin followed shortly after for 16*. Unfortunately, wickets began to tumble as the run-rate climbed and, with the lower-order batsmen having too much to do, St Mary’s eventually lost by 19 runs.

Both teams acquitted themselves well throughout the day and were a pleasure to supervise.

The students involved were:

Year 7s: Jack Pilling, Muizz Sheikh, Luke Ashcroft, Mohammed Din, Jake Davison, Jonjo Block, Sam Lievesley, Pawan Martin, John Carr, Hashim Ali and Will Campbell.

Year 8s: Tobin Togy, Ross Ward, Shazhib Saleem, Asif Khan, Matthew Brown, Ghulam Mustafa, Lovedeep Sadhra, Charlie Kain, Nadi Ahmed, Isaac Kain and Tomass Prado.
Mr Hook and Mr Bone