On Friday we were finally able to get Junior Cricket underway for our All Stars and junior soft ball and hard ball cricketers. Across the groups we had over 35 juniors on the ground last Friday night and that represents an excellent start - with a few more to join the All Stars group this week we should get close to 40 juniors at the club which is great to see.

We were also able to get a game of cricket in at home for the first time this summer when the 1st XI hosted Shurdington on Saturday - but missing 7 regular players from last summer for a variety of reasons we were well short of the standard and lost by 6 wickets. The 2nd XI did well to get a team out away at Upton St Leonards given the unavailability trickle down from the 1st XI and missing a couple of 2023 regulars of their own. That in itself was a positive result.

Unfortunately after thunderstorms on Sunday and persistent rain throughout Monday our Under 15's (Monday - away to Westbury), Under 11's (Tuesday - away to Woodpeckers) and the Midweek XI (Wednesday - home to Westbury) all had their matches cancelled. It was particularly frustrating to have to cancel a midweek game when Wednesday was such a fine, warm evening but the rain of Sunday and Monday meant we still had standing water on the outfield on Wednesday afternoon! We really need a dry few weeks to get away from the current predicament where any rain renders the field unplayable.

Luckily the standing water had cleared sufficiently for senior training last night and the worst of the heavy showers skirted around us as we trained last night which means that, a further unexpected downpour permitting, we will be back with Junior Cricket tonight from 6pm for all age groups. Unfortunately, there won't be a BBQ again tonight as we continue to be a bit short-handed but we hope that will return in time for the Bank Holiday weekend next Friday.

Looking forward to the rest of the weekend - the 1st XI and 2nd XI have a double header with their Newent counterparts and we have a full compliment of 22 to put out this weekend which, given the early season availability issues, is no small feat. Hopefully this weekend will mark the week that our season fully gets underway.

On Monday our Under 15's team are due to host Huntley at 6pm - and after a very frustrating few weeks hopefully we can get a game on for those juniors.

The rest of next week is quiet with "bye" weeks for both the Under 11's and Midweek team before we welcome our new overseas arrival, Ethan Gouws, from South Africa on Friday evening.