THE Somerset Under-11s triumphed at King’s College Festival in Taunton.

In this year’s King’s College Festival the Somerset Under-11s were grouped with Cambridgeshire, Hampshire and Worcestershire.

With a watchful eye on the weather the organisers reduced all of the games to 40 overs a side to allow some opportunity in the day to make up any time lost. On Monday in the opening match of the week Somerset won the toss and invited their opponents Cambridgeshire to bat first.

Good tidy bowling throughout and some keen fielding saw Cambridgeshire dismissed for 102. There were three wickets apiece for spinners Rhodri Lewis and William Burston, while Scott Reed and Sam Parsons claimed one each. When Somerset replied with darkening clouds overhead opener Ben Spink with 23 took the game to Cambridgeshire.The deluge started with Somerset on 43 for one from 12 overs after which the players never returned. The Tuesday match was further curtailed, and was eventually played as a T20 contest against Hampshire, who were invited to bat. Some accurate bowling kept the Hampshire run rate in check and frequent loss of wickets meant Hampshire finished their innings after 20 overs on 83 for six wickets.

Sam Parsons took two wickets, and there was one each for Will Burston, Rhodri Lewis, Tom Hall and Ben Spink.

In reply Somerset reached their target with six wickets and 12 balls to spare. There were significant contributions from Max Dicker who hit 20, William Smeed and Ben Spink who both made 16 and Max Toohey who saw his side home with an unbeaten18.

In the Wednesday game against Worcestershire who ever had the better of the game would win the tournament. Somerset were inserted, and excellent opening stand between Scott Reed (24) and Jack Press (41) set the base for captain William Smeed with a high quality 56 and late quick runs from Oscar Samuel (27) to post 186 for nine off 40 overs.

The Worcestershire reply started well and was looking more and more ominous. However Somerset stuck to their task well and although not getting wickets as regularly as they would have liked saw scoreboard pressure tell as late wickets began to tumble. Harvey Morland with four for 17 was the tormentor in chief, while there were two wickets wickets for Will Burston and one for Rhodri Lewis as Worcestershire finished on 135 for eight as Somerset claimed the winning draw and the festival winners shield.