On the 20th of December I took an hour long car ride to Rathmalana at 7.00 AM to play a cricket match for my club “Wildfire” against the NCC Cricket Academy. When our U17 team arrived at the ground we were in for quite a surprise as it turned out that since a lot of kids in the other team could not make it due to exams, there were around 3 or 4 U25 players who we would have to face! The schedule for the day was that we were going to play two 25 over matches in quick time so instead of moaning about the age gap we quickly got on with our games.
In the first game we lost the toss and bowled first and we were at best sloppy in the field as well as bowling. The NCC cricket academy took advantage of the evident lack of match practice in our side (myself not an exception as I was hit for 16 runs in 3 overs including a huge six) and went to town scoring 160/4 in 25 overs and giving us a target of 161 to win. Unfortunately we fell well short getting all out for just 110 in 23 overs with myself batting last and scoring 5 runs off 3 balls.
After lunch we began the 2nd match and after winning the toss we decided to bat first. We did fairly well scoring 120/9 in our 25 overs with myself scoring 1 run off 1 ball not out and knew that if we forgot about our carelesness displayed in the first game and performed as well as we knew we could, then we could win the game. After a much better display in the field when compared to our first game, we managed to take the game to the wire and win it in the 23rd over by getting the other team all out for 112 with myself bowling 3 overs and only being hit for 9 runs this time. Overall it was an extremely fun experience and it was amazing to play some matches after such a long break.
Learning Outcomes:
Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively: During the games I demonstrated the skills and recognized the benefits of working collaboratively as I had to show many collaborative skills in cricket such as communicating with your batting partner, backing up for a throw and working together with the team to create plans to get the opposition batsmen out.
Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process: After being hit for the massive 6 in my spell in the first game, I came back from it in the 2nd game as I realized that the batsman who hit me for a 6 in the first game was strong on the front foot so I developed a new tecnhique of bombarding him with slower ball bouncers in the 2nd game which not only was effective as it confused him, but showed me a new method of bowling during matches.