LAST week Derby Field at Wellington College was the venue for the second instalment of the Bracknell Forest Primary Schools Kwik cricket Festival.

The day was organised as part of the Council’s Young People in Sport Scheme and School Sport Partnership where the B teams and Year 5 teams took centre stage.

The teams were divided into groups for the first phase playing all the other teams in their group for a place in the semi finals.

In the Year 5 Section there were 3 groups with just the group winners and the best placed runner up who scored the highest run rate during the group stages progressing onto the semi-finals.

In Group 1 St Michaels Sandhurst won all the matches comfortably, scoring consistently and bowling well. They beat nearest rivals New Scotland Hill by 56 runs to progress. There was a similar pattern in Group 2 where Whitegrove went through unbeaten. Holly Spring Junior made it a clean sweep by winning Group 3 with 4 wins out of 4.

The final school to make it through on having the best average runs scored was Uplands on 235 runs per game.

In the first semi-final Whitegrove proved too strong for St Michaels Sandhurst scoring 262 runs and then restricting their opposition to 195. It was a closer in the second semi-final with Holly Spring Junior being restricted to a score of 205, but then bowling really well to restrict Uplands early in the match. It was not until the fourth pair that Uplands put some light between the finals scores.

The final saw Whitegrove being put into bat first and start with losing an early wicket. The batting pair slowly worked hard to reinstate themselves progressing on well in their second over. The next 3 pairings batted well scoring runs freely finally setting a strong total of 268. Uplands batted cautiously being constantly restricted by some impressive bowling and fielding. Uplands final total of 203 did not reflect how well they had batted throughout the game but unfortunately it came up short.

In the Year 6B section there were 3 groups with the winners and best runner up qualifying for the semi finals.

In Group A Warfield looked strong from the start and were hardly troubled in going through unbeaten. Group B was incredibly close with 2 teams finishing on the same points. In this instance we refer to the head to head game they had played earlier from the group which meant Crowthorne came out on top. In Group C saw New Scotland Hill win all their games to proceed has group winners. The best placed runner up is decided by the school with the best average run rate in second place in their group. This was an extremely close affair coming down to Whitegrove having a 1 run average per game more than Sandy Lane.

The Year 6B Semi Finals were both really exciting. In the first semi-final New Scotland Hill posted a score of 235. With Warfields last batting pair Warfield needed a big push requiring 22 runs to win from the last 2 overs. Unfortunately, they fell just short ending the innings on 226.

In the second semi-final Whitegrove batted first and started confidently and pushed on through the innings reaching a target of 249. Crowthorne started well but throughout the innings lost wickets regularly stifling their score and reaching 227.

New Scotland Hill opened the batting in the final. Whitegroves bowling was tricky to score runs from and the batting side lost wickets regularly. Good fielding kept up the pressure with New Scotland Hill reaching a total of 193. Whitegrove knowing they did not have to do anything extravagant - batted sensibly, steadily scoring runs when needing and not taking any risks to reach a total of 240 to be crowned winners.