The atmosphere for this match is what lurks only in our imagination for most of the dark months of the year; warm, golden sunlight flooded the Meadow for our return fixture against Grand Union. Having beaten them back in May, they seemed focussed and keen for a win.

Northchurch, full of confidence after racking up 150 against top of the League Tring the previous evening, decided to bat first. This looked a sensible decision, after captain Jackson smoked two towering sixes over the square leg fence in the first over. Grand Union adapted well and the change bowlers adjusted to a fuller length, which proved harder to get away.

A third six brought about Jackson's retirement but this only opened the door for Union, whose very tall bowler found some extra bounce to take two wickets in two ball. Northchurch's middle order continued to lose wickets in clusters, twice more losing two wickets in two balls, which really sucked the life out of the innings.

Over aggression against the change bowlers was costly. Chris M was effective for the visitors, taking 3 for 24 from his three overs but it was Charlotte B's remarkable figures of three wickets for two runs in two overs which surely deserved player of the match. Some middle order hitting from Charlie S took the Northchurch total over three figures and gave the home team something to bowl at.

After a promising start with the ball, it seemed Northchurch had not learnt from the Union bowlers the value of pitching the ball up. Regular boundaries got the visitors off to a very solid start. The introduction of pace duo Charlie and Woods stemmed the tide of runs and the breakthrough came when Steven chipped to Seb, who took a smart catch on his U15s debut. Charlie looked threatening by bowling a full length and was unlucky to see edges fly wide of the keeper.

Tilley's retirement after a brilliant opening stand of 59 meant two new bats were at the crease and there was a tense period when the game seemed poised. However, the new pair demonstrated great game awareness by realising that they had plenty of time to play themselves in before needing to score.

When Daniel was run out, they had put on 37 and all but won the game for their team. Captain Tayyab soon stroked the boundary that sealed a well deserved win for Grand Union.

Northchurch had simply not put enough runs on the board. Looking for lessons to take away, our innings included 56 dot balls out of 96 balls faced. We scored 15 boundaries but only 13 singles were taken. The key lesson is to rotate the strike by trying to work good balls for singles and waiting for the bad balls to hit to the boundary, like we had done against Tring.

The next and final opportunity for the U15s to put that into practice will come against Bushey on Monday night at the Meadow.