The 17th of August marked the final fixture of the season for the Grass Roots Academy against the Isle of Wight under 21′s at the beautiful Newclose county cricket ground on the Isle of Wight. .

GRA lost the toss and fielded first on what looked like and indeed proved to be a fantastic cricket wicket. I.O.W under 21′s made 233 for 9 in 40 overs which included an astonishing 51 extras. Although it was a decent total, GRA were still confident of the chase especially given our long batting line up and the short boundary on one side.

We got off to a good start with the openers making steady progress. After the fielding restrictions were lifted, we started to pick the scoring rate up a little but in turn started to lose wickets. It took another cameo from Lesbourne Edwards batting (31) at 7 to bring us back into the game before he was unfortunately run out.

The game came down to 10 runs needed off the final over with Aadam Rashid and Aqeel Iqbal at the crease. After a single and a big six over deep mid wicket from Aadam, we needed 3 runs off the last ball where we unluckily managed 1 run to leave us 1 short of a tie.

It was a fantastic game for the players and neutrals who both thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality and competition alike and we look forward to returning in 2012.

We thank all of the players, staff and parents connected with the GRA for making our first season a very enjoyable one