Ten children from Brundall School turned out early on Wednesday morning bubbling with enthusiasm ahead of the ASDA Kwik Cricket Tournament. The teams were presented with a challenging series of fixtures to be completed throughout the day and Brundall’s first challenge would be local rivals Blofield! The captain of the side, Jordan Staff, stepped onto the cricket square for the toss to decide which team would bat and the competition was underway. An enthralling day’s play ensued. A throng of eager spectators lent weighty support to the Brundall 10. The match swung to and fro with some fiery batting from Blofield matched by outstanding bowling from Brundall, Aiden Mills hat-trick of wickets shining through in particular. After a close fought contest Brundall lost narrowly by 17 runs.

Onwards and upwards then as Brundall honed their skills and sharpened their aim with St Williams Way B side in their sights. The contest once again pitched violently one way and then the other marked by flashes of brilliance from passionate cricketers. Steam train bowling down the hill from Chad Blyth and Connor Watson matched by ferocious six hitting into the neighbouring barn from the St Williams boys. A final look at the scoreboard told the cruel tale, Brundall were once again batted into 2^nd place!

Reeling from the shock of that defeat, Brundall boys once again steeled themselves for the next challenge, eager to put right these reverses. But who should home into view but St Williams A, a team packed with explosive county talent! It was to be an uphill struggle but brave Brundall battled on with some sensational fielding from Max Davy and Ben Bryan diving left and right to cut off the slicing cover drives and booming six hits into and even beyond the nearby barn. With the final St Williams bowler racing in it was all over as Jordan’s stumps flew out of the ground and Brundall were shattered by a 100 run defeat.

Not disheartened, Brundall met their next challengers with real gusto. Tempers flared and divas stropped as the passion to win briefly bubbled over. By now the specialists were really finding their form, with terrific wicket keeping from Astyn Webb behind the stumps and Lewis Edwards finding the groove on his slogged sixes over the boundary rope. The game between Brundall and Hemblington was a titanic battle and it looked for all the world that Brundall would come out on top until last gasp wickets tipped the balance toward Hemblington despite some crunching hits from Brundall’s Seb Moffat over the rope between the fielders. Despite an enormous effort it was not to be Brundall’s day and Hemblington sneaked to victory.

So onto the final match up against Freethorpe, a tough side, well up the table and playing well. Following a tricky start where scoring was difficult the Brundall boys really began to zip the ball about both with bat and ball. Once again some great six hitting marked out the Brundall innings but would those eight outs prove costly in the final analysis? A phenomenal catch from Theo Hewitt-Allard out in the deep to deprive Freethorpe of needed runs looked set to turn the tide but it was not to be. The valiant efforts of Brundall’s 10 could not be underestimated but Freethorpe proved too strong and slipped through to take victory.