Tower Hamlets finish second at London Youth Games

Tower Hamlet’s cricketers had a day to remember at Lord’s cricket ground as they finished second in the London Youth Games Indoor Cricket competition.

The team, comprised of players aged 8 and under, took silver on finals day, having qualified for the knockout stage of the tournament in February.

In the quarter-finals, they faced an Ealing side who, like Tower Hamlets, had come through the qualifying round-robin stage undefeated.

Tower Hamlets batted first and set their opponents a target of 110 to win, and good fielding prevented Ealing from successfully chasing that target.

Their reward for seeing off the West Londoners was a semi-final against reigning champions Redbridge.

The 2014 winners took to the crease first and posted a score of 107.

In reply, Tower Hamlets kept up with the required run-rate and were able to chase down the total with three balls to spare, sending the youngsters into the final.

In the showpiece event, Tower Hamlets took on another West London opponent in the form of Hillingdon.

Sadly for Tower Hamlets, their opponents played well with both bat and ball as they won the final, meaning Tower Hamlets finished a brilliant second.

Team manager Jahid Ahmed was understandbly proud of his side’s achievements, in particular their performance against Redbridge.

“It’s brilliant, like I said before we’ve made it to the last three finals days and today we had a very exciting game in the semi-final,” he said.

“The quarter-final, we won it quite comfortably in the end, but the semi-final was probably the biggest game we’ve had. It was a tight game.

“Obviously playing against Hillingdon at the end, it wasn’t quite as energetic as it was against Redbridge. I think the semi-final took a lot out of them and then when it came to the final they didn’t have that sort of energy.”