On behalf of Kimble Cricket Club, I would like to wish you all the best for Christmas and New Year and I would like to thank everybody who has supported the club in 2020 during these difficult times.
The 2020 season won't unfortunately be remembered for the cricket but when we did finally start playing in July, we had a good season - finishing second in our league and winning the Tier 5 second place play off against Abingdon. We also played more Sunday fixtures than we have for a number of seasons and all the games were competitive and enjoyable. One player really stood out in 2020 and that was Nisar Ahmed. He scored 503 runs in 7 league innings (the highest number in all divisions), averaging over 100, with a highest score of 178 not out. He also took 11 wickets at an average of 23 with best bowling figures of 4-7. A truly remarkable performance which we hope he will replicate next season.
For the 2021 season, we have taken the difficult decision to only enter one Saturday team in the Cherwell League, and the team will play in Tier 7A of the expanded league which now includes over 40 new clubs who have joined from the Oxford Cricket Association (OCA) League. We expect the cricket to be competitive and of a good standard and the great advantage of the expanded league is that most divisions, including ours, will be regionalised which means much less travel. Next season we look forward to home and away games against local teams such as Dinton, Thame, Bletchley, Bledlow Ridge and Westcott.
We hope to attract more players next season and if we do we will be able to enter two teams for the 2022 season but until then we need to concentrate on putting out strong teams every Saturday and Sunday to build the club back up. I am confident that we will be able to do this because thanks to our Treasurer Pete Spinks, we have been able to secure a number of grants in 2020 which mean that our club, unlike many other clubs, is financially secure and we intend to use the money to improve our facilities for the 2021 season which should also help to attract new players.
So although 2020 has been really difficult, I am hopeful that 2021 will be better for all of us and for Kimble CC. We will be in touch again in the New Year to hopefully confirm arrangements for pre-season nets and to seek volunteers to help us with our planned ground and facilities improvements.
If you haven't made your New Year's resolutions yet, can I ask you to consider (a) coming back to play for Kimble if you haven't played for a while (b) playing more games if you've only played a few games each season and (c) helping us to recruit some new players. If someone hadn't already got there first, I would like our slogan for 2021 to be 'Make Kimble Great Again'.
Best wishes to you and your families.
Bob Whitehead (Chairman)
On behalf of Kimble Cricket Club Committee