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The Lions U15 first game of the season was held on April 16th at Nagasawa ground. This season there is a much changed team with a number of last years players too old to play, and a number of new faces joining the team. The opponents were the India International School in Japan (IISJ).
IISJ won the toss and elected to bowl. Lions opening pair, Matthew and Kaede, started off well and set the flow for the rest of the innings, the partnership scoring 25 until Matthew was bowled by Ved K. Kaede went on to score a total of 23, until he was run out by Aadiraj; Kaede`s strong performance would continue with his bowling in the second innings, winning him the player of the match. Taiga and Timmy were the next batsmen to feature, taking the total score to 114, Taiga bowled by Aditya on 31 and Timmy retiring as he hit the score limit at 46 (entering his final allowed over at 30 runs, he hit 4x4`s to maximise his score). Timmy would return to bat again in the 18th over, following the dismissal of Jamie, and added another 5 runs to his total, for a match high score of 51 runs. Other notable performances included Leo W (16 off 9 balls) and Juto, playing his first game and scoring 4 from 6 balls before an unfortunate run out by Aadiraj. The total at the end of the innings was 182 from 19.2 overs.
In the IISJ innings the Lions bowling and fielding was much improved from some of last years performances, and IISJ were dismissed within 100. Juto and Kanato, two of the new lions secured a 3 wicket hall and 2 wickets respectively and Kaede got a 3 wicket hall and 2 catches. Taiga exchanged the gloves in the final 10 overs and bowled for 3 overs conceding only 9 runs. Standout IISJ batsmen were Vihan C (15 of 16 balls), Ved (8 off 12), Rezon B. (16 off 13) and Laksh S. who batted twice (coming off after the maximum permitted balls, but being allowed to return after the dismissal of his team mates) and who managed to stay for 30 balls, before being dismissed on his 31st ball by Kaede (bowler) and Matthew (catch).
Stats: Highest scoring batsman : Timmy (51), best batting strike rate : Leo W. (178), most wickets : Kaede (3-15) and Juto (3-15), best bowling economy : Taiga (0.3).
Player of the Match: Kaede
Team: George Loran, Kaede Sommer, Kanato Suehiro, James Weeks, Juto Ball, Leo Wisessintu, Matthew Palmer, Nived Nambiar Pietro Boccalatte, Taiga Hague (Captain, Wicket Keeper overs 1-10), Timothy Moore (Vice-Captain, Wicket Keeper overs 11-20).
