THE future is looking bright at the Angle Vale Cricket Club, with the club boasting three members of Para District Cricket Association’s SACA under-16 boys representative carnival team.
Harry Pannell, Joshua Frampton and Kaiden Christensen received the call-up for the carnival after some strong, sustained form leading into the new year.
Pannell, who made his A-grade debut a couple of weeks ago, had a terrific carnival, finishing as the fifth-highest run scorer after nabbing his first ever century with a 101 against South Central.
Frampton – who smashed seven sixes in the last two overs to steal an unlikely win against Two Wells earlier in the season – finished as the carnival’s equal leading wicket taker with 12, including a 4/6 showing from 5.5 overs against South Central.
Christensen is in just his third season of cricket, and managed to nab his first career hat-trick against an impressive Adelaide Turf North squad in a game where he took 4/8 in 5.4 overs and took two catches.
Frampton said the carnival was a clear step-up in competition, but that the boys relished the opportunity to test themselves.
“It was actually a pretty big step-up – as a bowler you had to be really consistent with your line and length,” he said.
“When batting you had to be nice and patient and wait for those bad balls to come – you couldn’t really get away with any sloppy play so it was good cricket.”
Christensen said the PDCA is one of the smaller associations, so despite only winning one game, most of the side performed well compared to expectation.
“We got up in our first game and that was it – our bowling was sharp, and we played some really stacked sides, but we still probably underperformed with the ball,” he said.
“Most of the games were played on turf, and PDCA teams all play on concrete, so we had to adjust quickly and that was a bit harder with the bat than with the ball.
“We were thrown together as a team pretty quickly, so we could’ve done with a few more sessions together, but everyone was probably in the same boat there and it was still a lot of fun.”
The final of the carnival was won by Fleurieu & Districts after successfully defending a total of 6/160 against Barossa & Light.
Sandy Creek’s Will O’Brien top scored in the chase with 39 to finish the carnival with an average of 80 from his four innings, including an even 100.