Matt Geffen final tour blog

Final Tour Blog from Dubai

After the final practice session, we returned to the hotel for our regeneration session and also the swimming final, James “flipper” Chapman against Luke “torpedo” Wells, Wells with his reach advantage clear favourite, but as we have learnt this trip the underdog can have their day, and again this rang true, as Chapman produced a strong performance to take Gold. It was then time to return to our rooms and pack for our return home.

Our last match saw us play against the Academy Arch trophy winners, Yorkshire. On What turned out to be the hottest day of the tour, we lost the toss, and were asked to field, after a steady start The Yorkshire batsman took the attack to the Sussex Bowlers, And at 92 for 1 at the first drinks break we looking to post a major score, our spinners Luke (Wells) and Jack (Parsons) both bowled really well checking the Yorkshire dominance, and enabling us hold them to 275 of their 50 over’s, this was realistically 30 to many but twenty less than it could have been.

We again lost a couple of early wicket’s James after he was looking really good. Luke showed us again how good a player he is, he was the only player to master their very lively and disciplined attacked and his 69 would have been at a run a ball, they at times came close to the line in there comment’s to us and the umpires, but they clearly were the best team, They finally wrapped up our innings for 175.

After a quick Trophy presentation to Yorkshire, we and the other team’s were off to airport and on our flight home.

The Tour was a great learning experience and a couple of the younger players really did come on well, and some of the issue’s we had with our batting and bowling with give us plenty to focus on over the coming month’s back at Hove.

I hope that you have enjoyed following the tour, we hope you all have a very happy Christmas and here’s to another successful year for Sussex Cricket.