Meaker prepares for U-19 World Cup

Stuart Meaker is blogging for Surrey CCC during his time with England at the Under-19 World Cup

Last week was the official start of the competitive cricket that we were going to be playing in Sri Lanka. The Triangular One Day series between us, Pakistan and Sri the Lankan under 19s had kick started on the Tuesday with Pakistan triumphing over the home side.

The following day, it was our turn to get a crack at the Pakistan team. It promised to be a very competitive match because of our encounters last summer. We won the toss and elected to bat but our start left much to be desired as we slipped to 44 for 5.

This however brought Ben Brown to the crease with Dan Redfern at the other end. Their partnership of 105 and Brownies' knock of 93 not out left us with a respectable total of 213. Thanks to a reasonable start with the ball, tricky middle spells from our spinners and great death bowling from Jimmy Harris and Jimmy Lee we won our first match of the series. The following day however was not as successful. Taking on Sri Lanka, we struggled to post a big score and got bowled out for 208 - well short of what was required on a fairly flat wicket. This showed as the Sri Lankans knocked it off with relative ease.

We had a well-earned day of rest the next day and a team meal in the evening. We followed the time off with a net session the next day and the squad felt ready to battle against the Sri Lankans once again, this time at the Singhalese Sports Club a Test Match ground. It was a huge game as all three teams had both won one and lost one match so we still had a good chance of making the final. Unfortunately this was not to be the case. We elected to field this time on what was in hindsight a very flat pitch. The Sri Lankan top order got a hold of our bowlers and set about producing a mammoth score of 310. They had returned the favour from our first encounter and hit us at a crucial time. Browny got the chance to open with Billy Godleman and after getting off to a flier with a few early boundaries the wickets began to tumble and so too our chances of qualification into the final. We eventually fell 140 short to be exact! I think its safe to say that on this occasion we were very much outplayed in all departments of the game.

Our final Tri-series game came with some good news for me. I was given the ok to play against Pakistan. It was a great relief after the frustration of having to watch my team mates have all the fun. We were on the same wicket that we had taken on the Sri Lankans on just two days before. As such, we elected to bat first and thanks to a brilliant Century from Billy Godleman, his second of the tour so far, we managed to post a total of 250. The other half of the innings unfortunately did not go quite according to plan. The excitement of getting the chance to play was short lived as my first two overs went wicketless for 18 – not the best start! Pakistan got off to a great start and in an attempt to stem the flow of runs we introduced the spinners after only five overs. This however did not do much to slow the rate as they galloped ahead to 88 from just 10 overs. This forced the skipper Alex Wakely to not take the power play and they proceeded to about 130 before they lost their first wicket. The wickets prompted my second spell which was far better, producing overall figures of six overs for 34. Not bad considering.

Although that day there was a fair amount of frustration within the squad there was also a huge amount of determination, guts and character to keep plugging away and running in despite the ball disappearing to all parts. Many individual and team lessons have been learned this tri-series. Hopefully we can implement them next week.