County Cadet Championships Day 1 Gainsborough Saturday 1st October (Division 1b)
Warwickshire v Staffordshire (4-6)
Warwickshire sent six cadets (4 boys and 2 girls) to day 1 of the county cadet championships in Gainsborough. The first match was against Staffordshire which they narrowly lost 4-6. The two boys Ricardo Bolanos (Warwickshire’s no 1 ) and Nikit Sajiv (Warks no 2 ) both won their opening two singles matches. Ricardo beat Harry Fletcher (Staffordshire’s no 2 ) and Alex Lee (Staffs no 1 ) 3-0 and 3-1 respectively. Nikit (Warks no 2 ) defeated Alex Lee 3-2 and then added to this with a 3-1 victory over Joshua Webb (Staffs no 3 ). The girls team performed valiantly in their first match but the Staffordshire opposition proved to be too strong on this occasion. Kirsty Maul (Staffs no 2 ) defeated Emily Beasley (Warks no 1 ) 3-1 and then defeated Milly Green (Warks no 2 ) who was making her county debut 3-0. Whilst Amillia Baker (Staffs no 1 ) took a brace by beating Milly and Emily 3-0. Dan Burgess (Warks no 3 ) also making his Warwickshire county debut went down 3-1 to Joshua Webb in his first match before succumbing 3-2 to Harry Fletcher in an enthralling 5 set match, which could have gone either way to give Staffordshire the narrow victory.
Leicestershire v Warwickshire (3-7)
Warwickshire were away in their next fixture against Leicestershire and got their campaign well and truly underway with an emphatic 7-3 victory. Josh Yarrow made his Warwickshire county debut replacing Dan Burgess and what an impact he had winning both his singles matches against Edward Brown (Leicestershire no 2 ) 3-2 and Shiven Arora (Leics no 3 ) 3-0. The girls then got on the mark with Milly Green taking a very impressive brace against Frankie Hallam (Leics no 2 ) 3-2 and then beating Maya Dehnen (Leics no 1 ) even more convincingly 3-1. Emily Beasley added to this with a fine win over Frankie but narrowly lost to Maya in a tight encounter 3-2. Ricardo beat Shiven 3-0 and Nikit beat Edward 3-0 but both boys found Jack Rogers (Leics no 1 ) far too strong. Jack defeated Nikit 3-0 whilst Ricardo took the first set but eventually went down 3-1. Overall a fine display by Warwickshire with great team spirit and togetherness routing each other on all the way.
Warwickshire v Suffolk (9-1)
In their final match of day 1 Warwickshire were at home to Suffolk and after a deserved break, the team were in no mood to rest on their laurels and they saved their best performance until last by dismantling Suffolk 9-1. Dan Burgess came in for Josh Yarrow for the final match and he performed exquisitely, to win both of his matches against Henry Shaw (Suffolk no 3 ) and Thomas Clarke (Suffolk no 2 ) 3-0. The duo of Emily and Milly were also on song, Emily notched another two victories against Lucy Curtis (Suffolk no 2 ) and Isobel McGerty (Suffolk no 1 ). Milly was also very close to a brace, she defeated Lucy 3-1 but narrowly lost to Isobel 3-2 in an entertaining contest. It was now proving to be damage limitation for Suffolk and Warwickshire kept the pressure on with Nikit grabbing another 2 wins, against Luke Davies-Stokes (Suffolk no 1 ) and Henry Shaw. It proved slightly more difficult for Warwickshire’s number 1 Ricardo, who had two tough encounters. First against Thomas Clarke winning 3-2, then the final match where all eyes were on Ricardo against Luke Davies-Stokes, was decided by a net call in deuce in the fifth set, going in favour for the no 1.
This concluded day 1 and Warwickshire should be delighted with their efforts and after a solid start will be ready to go again for day 2 on December 17th.
Harry Purewal (Warwickshire County Cadet Captain)
