The big news from summer 2009 wasn't England's glorious victory over the Aussies to win back the Ashes, it wasn't even the fact that St. Michael's cricket club had three trips to Lords that year, but the magnificent performances of all our school cricket teams in the competitions they took part in over the summer.

Let's begin with the girl's cricket team. Girl's cricket at St. Michael's hasn't been particularly well supported in the past, this year we had a whole group of year 6 girls who were ready for the heat of competition. Thankfully, Haringey managed to organise a Kwik cricket competition for girls, which we duly won. On we marched into the Middlesex finals at Regents Park a week later. Thanks to some excellent teamwork and some outstanding performances, the girls were crowned Middlesex Champions. On a fiercely hot Wednesday, we represented Middlesex in the regional finals. In a less than satisfactory round robin tournament format, we were matched against the top team in the opening round and lost in the last over. Winning all our remaining games meant very little and we ended up Regional Runners up. For outstanding teamwork and sporting behaviour in defeat, our girls team were invited to the first day of the 2nd Ashes test at Lords. In front of a capacity crowd the girls demonstrated their Kwik cricket skills during the lunch time break. It doesn't get much better than that !!!

The boys also performed admirably in the 3 competitions they took part in. We took two teams to the Haringey finals in June, Team A duly won with team B being closely defeated in the semi finals. On we went to the Middlesex finals, unfortunately in a hard fought final we were defeated by a very good team from Harrow. Even so, as runners up from Middlesex we were invited to the regional finals in Regents Park, a fantastic day was had by all. The children played without fear and ended the day with a 5:3 winning record. Some tremendous cricket was played that day, giving the children the incentive they need to go on to even greater success next year.

This year we have a fantastic number of children interested in cricket . Thanks to the success of the girls team, we have added interest from potential girl players, lets hope they can match the amazing achievements of last year. The boys hopefully will be stronger than last year with only 2 members of last years team being Year 6's.

Garfield will be coaching once again this year and a big thank you to Ellies dad who has volunteered to help out on a weekly basis at least for this year.

Once again thank you to all the children for their enthusiasm and passion for this great game, thank you to all the parents who continue to support the club.

Tony Lanfranchi