September 4th 2005
Junior Cricket Skills and Single Wicket Finals Day
Scorching hot weather once again greeted the young Oaks cricketers in pursuit of single wicket glory. A total of XX young cricketers turned out to contest the five age-group finals. Amongst them were four of last year's winners Joel Gallagher, Scott Hartley, Nick Crook and Jack Davison.
The morning's events were once again a six-discipline skills competition designed to whittle the numbers down to two in each age-group for the afternoon finals. The disciplines were Running, catching, batting, bowling, throwing and fielding. The Running was held in age-groups with other events in mixed groups although the scoring system was against only each cricketers peer group. The Running skill comprised a 100 yard sprint and a 66-yard 'three-run' simulation with bat in hand. As usual the crowd were unstinting in their derision of any one considered not trying and this year was no exception. The five-discipline rotation followed for the remainder of the morning. The results emerged as below:
| Under 9s | Batting | Bowling | Throwing | Catching | Running | Fielding | Total |
| Ben Howell | 5.5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 32.5 |
| George Ingham | 5.5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 29.5 |
| Jack Keighley | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 24.0 |
| Matthew Dilworth | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 23.0 |
Under 9s Final
Mighty mite Ben Howell took his first
trophy, the Dobson &
Robinson Cup for 2005. The Final with George Ingham
was a tense affair as Ben scored just one from the bat, opting for a defensive
strategy. Two wides from George swelle3d his tally to 9. Ben's bowling had
earlier been exemplary with only 2 wides but he did capture George's wicket the
once which was more enough to take George's score from 13 to 5.