On Wednesday, 14th June, we were lucky enough to have a visit from Mr Mike Gatting OBE, former Middlesex and England cricket captain and current CEO of the ECB. After a meeting with the Head Master and a tour of the School, Mike spoke to and engaged our Year 3 to Year 10 pupils on the topic of ‘Commitment’. They were given the opportunity to ask questions and interact with Mike, as an ex-professional sportsman and a legend of the game of cricket, on the topic. Our pupils showed themselves to be a very impressive bunch, and Mike stated that he was “extremely impressed by the maturity and level of ideas coming through”, and that we “obviously have some very bright and impressive young people in our midst”!
The Year 3 to 6 pupils were lucky enough to have Mike coach them during Wednesday’s LIA sport, in preparation for their participation in the U9 and U11 Mike Gatting Cup held at DCIS on Thursday.
After their training session with Mike, all pupils in Years 3, 5 and 6 travelled to DCIS to participate and compete, as 3 teams, in the Mike Gatting Cricket Cup on Thursday. Given that we have only been able to spend a limited time in preparing (and that almost all pupils had never played before), our pupils launched themselves into the tournament with all their usual excitement and enthusiasm. Harrow’s U9 team had quite a steep learning curve meeting some more experienced teams from YK Pao and DCIS, but were unlucky not to win a game. Our two Harrow U11 teams, the ‘Academics’ and the ‘Boaters’, competed admirably against some extremely tough and experienced opposition. The ‘Academics’ took a well-deserved win over Wellington in their second game! Both the ‘Academics’ and the ‘Boaters’ ended up meeting each other in the semi-final of the plate competition. The ‘Academics’ took the spoils and went on to lose a hard fought game against DCIS in the plate final.
All the pupils had a great day out and enjoyed their introduction to competitive cricket.