First match on the Saturday was against Lincolnshire. It turned out to be a fairly comfortable 9-1 win with Helshan, Jack, Daniel and Lois all winning two. Emma won one, winning her match 13-11 in the decider.

Next on was Cleveland who are always tough opposition. Our three experienced players of Helshan, Lois and Jack saw us through with two wins each and Josh added an extra one losing his other game in the fifth. Emma lost both her games but one only in the fifth. That gave us a 7-3 win.

Final match of the Saturday was versus Yorkshire. Daniel Pound replaced Josh Bennett. It resulted in another comfortable win of 9-1 with Lois, Emma, Helshan and Jack all winning two and Daniel one. Helshan did get taken to five in one match and Emma won one of her matches 13-11 in the fifth set.

The team went back to their hotel in Market Harborough happy especially as big rivals Middlesex minus Tyrone Wells had lost one but knowing the two tough games of Glamorgan and Middlesex were to follow the next day.

Sunday saw us first up against Worcestershire. Helshan, Jack, Josh, Lois and Emma all won two to give us a 10-0 victory.

Next was one of the matches we had considered as critical. We were well aware it was one we could lose against a very strong Glamorgan team of Ryan Tyler, Chris Griffiths, Callum Evans, Beth Roberts and Caitlin Williams. Emma Sheen did really well to beat there number one girl Beth Roberts but did lose to the other girl. Remarkably Josh, Jack, Helshan and Lois all won two each to give us an exceptional 9-1 win against a team at that point who had won all their matches. It also included perhaps the match of the weekend as Josh Bennett beat Chris Griffiths 13-11 in the final set after both players had match points.

An easier match followed against Staffordshire with another 9-1 win. Again Jack, Helshan and Lois winning two plus two from Emma and one from Daniel.

That meant we went into our recent cadet nemesis (Middlesex) final match believing anything better than a 8-2 defeat would leave us as county champions however we could not allow ourselves to believe our calculations and wanted to beat Middlesex just to make sure. Middlesex certainly believed if they beat us they would be county champions as we would finish with the same points but they would have beaten us in the head to head. First game saw Helshan beat Daniel Wright in four sets after losing the second set 14-12. Omar Khassal then defeated Josh Bennett and with their England No.1 Tin Tin Ho beating Emma Sheen we were 2-1 down.

An incredible match followed with Jack Bennett beating Gabriel Achampong 14-12 in the fifth to level the match up. Lois Peake won a nervous game against old adversary Eda Aydin in five sets. Middlesex again made it all square with Daniel Wright beating Josh Bennett. Eda then beat Emma Sheen although Emma did take a set. This time it was Helshan that levelled the match at 4-4 with a four set win over Gabriel. Tin Tin Ho then met Lois Peake who had a 100% record at that point but her England team mate for Slovakia was to good. That meant Jack had to beat Omar to give us a draw and he obliged with a four set win which made it a certainty we were County champions by 2 clear points.

It was the second time we have become cadet county champions. This was Helshan’s swansong as a cadet and he was part of the team that achieved it as a 10 year old. Surely this must be the biggest gap of any player between County Championship cadet wins. Our team before was Stephen Eckford, Helshan Weerasinghe, Ricki Weston, Yolanda King and Sarah Russo.

For the first time ever Sussex are currently county champions at both junior disciplines having won the Junior County Championship last season. Helshan and Lois Peake were  also part of that team. The backbone of our cadet team was Helshan and Jack Bennett who both played 14 and won 14 and Lois Peake who won 13 out of 14 losing just to Tin Tin.  The two boys sharing the number three spot were a credit putting the team before their natural personal desire to play as many games as possible. Josh Bennett won five out of eight and Daniel Pound four from six.

Finally a big thank you is in order for team captain Terry Dean, the parents providing support and for not really complaining when I booked a hotel further away than I meant to and for Chris Newberry’s support throughout the weekend.     

Peter Baldwin (Sussex Junior Match Secretary)