The Blue Coat 2017 cricketing season culminated with an outstanding Cricket Week just before the School broke up for the summer break.

Monday saw the U15A team take on the wily XL club and win by wickets chasing 170 with Cameron Ireland scoring 73.

On Tuesday, the First XI made the trip to Christ’s Hospital in Horsham. The batsmen were going quite nicely at 76/2  before rain cut the game short.   It was, however, a nice experience for our team to learn a little bit more about the history of Christ’s Hospital (who have the blue coat uniform in common with our school), when they were kindly guided around the huge site by their players during the rain break.

A tough game on Wednesday against a strong Dr Challenor’s side saw the 1^st XI well beaten.

On Thursday, we welcomed Newington College from Sydney, as part of their UK tour. After some tough games for the tourists, things didn’t get easier, as Blue Coat bowled them out for 109, with Ryan Palihawadana taking 4-14.  The total was easily chased, with Eddie Lee top scoring with 46.

An additional T20 game was played with time remaining, with Blue Coat batting first and scoring 163/8 off their 20. In reply, Newington could muster only 138.

Friday saw the visit of the prestigious MCC with added incentive to the game as one of the MCC trialists was Blue Coat’s 1st XI coach, Mr Davies!  It was a hard slog for the 1^st XI as the MCC racked up 286-3 declared.  In reply, it was only really Jack Hill who put up some resilience with a score of 47, fending off the bowling of his father, who was also playing, and the “cunning guile” of Mr Davies  (his words!), who took 2-33 for the MCC  as the 1^st XI were bowled out for 138.

For many, the best event of the summer is the Blue Coat T20 festival, to which we welcome eight teams from around the area and this year Stamford School from Lincolnshire as guests. Blue Coat were ruthless in the first game, bowling out Windsor Boys for 44, with Louis Barwell taking 4-3 and then knocking them off in 3.1 overs.

In the semi-final,  Blue Coat scored 210-5,  with James Rogers scoring 117 and Tom Price scoring his first 1^st XI 50* for the team.  Blue Coat were able to restrict Shiplake to 187 off the 20.

The final was against Stamford School and Blue Coat chose to bat first, scoring 154-9 off their 20, with Ben Cole scoring 50. It was fairly routine in reply as Joey Everson of Stamford (who has played for Nottinghamshire 2^ndXI this year) compiled a match-winning 82* to win the competition for Stamford.  A great day of cricket, to crown an excellent Cricket Week.