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S P O R T S
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Cricket Legend
Retires
At the end of the summer term a local cricketing legend retired
– for a second time. John Lever MBE, former Essex CCC and
regular England player in both test and one–day matches, retired
from professional cricket in 1989. A few weeks later he began
a new career as a member of the PE Department at Bancroft’s,
becoming Master in Charge of Cricket in 1997.
For the past thirty years, John Lever has passed on his expertise
and wisdom to successive generations of aspiring young cricketers.
He encouraged talent from a young age and Bancroft’s cricket
earned a reputation as some of the best on the schools’ circuit. On
Wednesday 3 July, a group of past players from Bancroft’s were
invited by Mr Lever back to school to play for a John Lever XI in
a friendly match against the School’s current 1st XI. Victory was
enjoyed by the John Lever XI who won by 54 runs, bowling the
1st XI out for 119.
Speaking to the returning Old Bancrofians it was obvious that John
Lever was a man much respected and valued by the Bancroft’s
sporting community. Neville Jacobs and Rahul Patel agreed that,
“He is the most knowledgeable person about cricket we have ever
met. He taught us everything we know about the game. From
John Lever we learnt how to conduct ourselves both on and off
the field. He also had a great sense of humour and was the king
of fancy dress!” These sentiments were echoed by current players
who regard him as their cricketing mentor. Ben Bagley described
John Lever as,“very wise” and Rohan Patel said that he was
“insightful and kind”.
Our current Head of Cricket, Carl Greenidge, said,“John Lever
was a great servant to the game and indeed Bancroft’s School.
Thirty years of committed service speaks volumes of the man
considering his glittering CV. A man who is way more generous
with his time than with his words but when he speaks to you it is
with true wisdom and humility.”
Thirds’
Cricket Week
During the first week of the summer holidays, twelve Thirds
boys took part in a cricket week organised by Mr Flaherty,
playing eight matches against some good sides from around
Essex and Kent.
Our first game of the tour was against Campion
School.Webatted strongly to end up at a score of 161-6.With this strong
score, our position became dominant with some brilliant bowling
from Arman Bashi, which brought the opposing side to a sudden
halt at 125 all out.This set us on the first win of many on this tour.
Our next game was against Bancroft’s Lions. In this game, several
of our players played for both sides as they play for the club
outside of school! We saw brilliant batting performances from
both sides with our opening batsmen Dhruv Verma scoring 52 not
out and also a score of 50 from Henry Knight, also of Bancroft’s
School, but playing for the Lions.This game was closer than
anticipated with the Lions coming within 20 runs of the target.
The third fixture came in the shape of a T20 tournament with
four teams. In our first game, we came up against Coopers’
Coborn.Webatted first and came with a score of 145-5. With
tight bowling, we cut them down to 105-6 to advance to the
final against Shenfield High School. During this game, our batting
started well but soon collapsed and came down to the wire with
slow scoring and good bowling. In the end we won by 2 wickets
to take the trophy home.
In our fifth game we came against the strong side of KEGS. In this
game, we simply did not turn up! We are just glad Arman Bashir,
who top scored with 28, and Aashay Rao helped us to post a
reasonable score. KEGS came out strong and with our wayward
bowling, they stormed to victory: our only loss.
In the game against CRGS, we bowled well. Aashay Rao
achieved figures of 3-6, reducing them to a score of 92 all out.
When we batted, we opened with new opening batters but, after
their disappointing performance, Dhruv Verma and Louis Channer
batted well to finish the job. The next game against Westcliff
included tight bowling from Alex Hancock and we emerged
victorious with some lusty blows from Aryan Chandel. Our final
match took us south to face the might of Judd School in
Tonbridge and we won our seventh game from eight matches.
Overall, a great deal of enjoyment was had by all; we blended
as a team and learned a great deal about the importance of
team work.
Louis Channer, RS