Sarisbury Athletic V (the Academy Team)

Created in 2010 to give our promising youngsters an early taste of adult league cricket.

Academy XI 2010

Academy XI Season Review, 2010 Season

The debut season of a 5th adult league side for Sarisbury Athletic ended in the glory of promotion. The emphasis of what came to be known as Sarisbury Academy was very much on youth with four adults as mentors and seven youngsters.

The Academy managed 13 wins from 16 games with one wash-out. Three early beatings handed out gave the youngsters confidence, though all three victims were to flounder near the foot of the table. Nevertheless, bowling out sides for 61 and 69 is no mean feat, and some pretty impressive bowling figures too: Will Jacobs 5 for 7 and Tom Farley 6 for 4. A half-century from Ed Ruff in game three supported the first of four major innings from Mike Clinch (94 retired hurt).

The best game of the season ended in defeat away to Southampton Community, who were to finish 2nd, where we narrowly failed to chase down 223 to win. This was the first of two successive losses - the second v Ampfield Crusaders was perhaps the only one where we might have been booed off at half-time, using football vernacular. This would have been unfair in the context of the season, and missing three key players. Even so, Lewis Mitchard scored his maiden league fifty, followed by a superb 61 in the following match.

We lost Lewis up to the 3rd team for a few matches, but the side went on a 7 match winning run to put ourselves into the top three. The Langley Manor win was the one that convinced many sceptics within the cricket club to take us seriously, chasing down 187 with ease after a century opening stand between Lewis and captain Ian Farley. Clayhill were skittled again for under 100 and a brilliant win in the New Forest at Totton & Eling was perhaps the best team performance of the season. Milan Chauhan had come into the team and added a new dimension to our bowling, swing and seam movement that accounted for 18 victims @ 8.4 average in 6 matches.

The senior players took more of a centre stage in the next two games with Ian Farley hitting 99 at Colden Common, a match unfortunately to be remembered more for a car robbery than for cricket, and Mike Clinch hit North Baddesley for a ton and Colden Common for 60 not out in 24 balls. Mike ended up top runscorer with 433 at an average of 86 with Ian 361 @ 36. Dave Mitchard's unbeaten 74, his third fifty of the season, helped him to an average of 39.7 with 357 runs. The youngsters came more into focus in the local derby with Burridge, as openers Matt Spicer (66) and Rob Clinch (72) put on 139, our highest partnership of the season. Milan Chauhan's 5-27 was a beautiful spell worthy of great praise. Hedge End were then well beaten on a dreadful pitch, again Mike Clinch (86) the batting hero.

Coming into August, the stage was set for us to virtually clinch promotion in a key clash with 4th placed Hamble. Both sides were on long winning runs but after bowling out the visitors, our chances were scuppered by afternoon rain that made the pitch too tricky for us to attain a reduced overs target. Many of us thought our chances were gone, but we escaped the weather that badly affected the programme in the following two weeks to score 47 points from a maximum 48. Knowle Village were blown away for 60 and Trojans for 111 after we had notched decent totals and two Ian Farley fifties. The long journey to Sway's ground was worth it as we clinched promotion by 7 wickets on the final day.

24 different players appeared for the Academy and all contributed in their different ways. Lewis Mitchard (234 runs @ 39 and 19 wickets @ 8) was the star youngster but a number of others gave notice of their potential to play at a higher level. Rob Clinch (293 runs @ 24) and Matt Spicer (224 @ 25) had good batting seasons, with Matt's wicket-keeping improving over the year, 12 catches and 3 stumpings. Ed Ruff proved a useful all-rounder with 187 runs and 6 wickets, while the race to be top wicket-taker was keenly contested. Grisled veteran Les Orr (24 @ 14) tied with young slow bowler Tom Farley (24 @ 15) while fellow spinner Ollie Challis picked up 14 @ 19 apiece. As well as Lewis and Milan, mentioned earlier, Mike Cooper was a useful change bowler, nabbing 15 wickets @ 10 each, while Will Jacobs, whose season was curtailed by injury, and Toby Mitcheson also did fine jobs on the occasions they played. Left-arm seamer Max Allen and keeper James Scott too showed potential in fleeting appearances and may well become Academy regulars in the next year or two.

All in all, a real success story. Most credit must go to captain Ian Farley, both for his vision of the Academy as a 5th adult league side, and in his development of the youngsters, who have been mentored in playing the game the right way, in the right spirit. Comparing many of these boys now with them in April, one can see the change, not just in cricketing terms, but also from teenagers to young men of whom the club can be rightly proud. As someone who has observed as the team's scorer for all but one innings of the season, I can only applaud the respect that they pay to team mates, opponents, umpires and other spectators and officials. I really look forward to 2011 and to see how the Academy handle the "difficult second season" and to see new students of the Academy.

Keith Spicer