Wiltshire's County Boys Under 13s win Taunton Festival!

The County Under 13 Boys enjoyed a fantastic end to the 2026 CAG season with a 100% winning record at the Kings College Taunton Festival (Aug 16-21)

13 squad members attended the festival with high hopes after early season successes against Dorset x 2, Devon x 2, The ACE Programme, Somerset and Hampshire.

The week began with a 113 run win against Kings College, the outstanding performance from George Smith (31), Nelson Short (30) and Ed Payne (34) before seamer George Lewis bowled Kings out with 5-0-9-5.

The second game saw us overcome MLCS from Seattle, USA by 7 wks with Nelson Short (37 n.o) and Freddie Hemmings (55n.o) batting with great patience after Viraaj Khandhadia blew the !LCA batting away with a fantastic 7 wicket haul (8-0-27-7)

The next match v Calypso Cricket from Maidstone proved to be the hardest game so far. Wilts battled to 216 a.o. with Hemmings again the top scorer with (69) top scoring, Sam Edwards chipping in with 28 valuable runs.  The game was well balanced with Calypso on 156-5 before Alex Trewartha skittled the middle and lower order with figures of 8-0-27-5.

Our fourth game v Cambridgeshire was played on the Kings main ground and it proved to be the tightest and most significant game of the week.

Cambs batted first and accumulated 195 a.o. With Nelson Short the main wicket taker with figures of 8-0-40-4. Wilts early response too them to 86-1 before wickets began to tumble . Rupert Pugh(62) batted superbly to steady the Innings with great support from Harry Clay(21),Nelson Short (23 n.o.) and George Lewis(19) In a nervy end to the game as Wilts got over the line to win by 3wks.

The final game of the week was the title decider against The Big 5 Cricket from Southampton.

On a difficult pitch Wilts could only manage to get to 134 a.o. with Ollie Knight top scorer with 32 valuable runs near the end supported by Ollie Sheppard (19).

Our meagre total was however  easily enough as Marco Scollo (8-0-27-5), Ollie Sheppard (5-0-8-2) and Sam Edwards (4-0-19-2) tore through the Big 5 batting bowling them out for 62.

So with 5 Wins from 5 Wilts were crowned Kings Festival Champions for the first time.