John Lyon have successfully defended their Middlesex school cricket county crown, with a five-day run from quarter-finals to victory.

Having won the Middlesex County cup in 2019 and then no competition in 2020, the 2021 tournament offered the first chance in two years for John Lyon’s 1st XI to defend the prestigious title.

With a truncated cricketing season and short Summer Term, the tournament schedule had all three final rounds to be played in a single week in June.

On Monday, the team beat Isleworth and Syon School by nine wickets, in a match which saw Aryan Sutaria (four wickets) and Ismail Ahmed (three wickets) star with the ball and scores of 34 each for Kahil Jariwala and Rahul Renganath with the bat.

On Wednesday, St Benedict’s School, Ealing, were the opponents in a tighter match which John Lyon won by 26 runs, including two wickets each for Aryan Sutaria and Ismail Ahmed, and 55 runs for Advait Sundaram.

The Friday final promised to be a close-run encounter but ended up anything but, with a dominant John Lyon racing to victory by a huge 87 runs against Merchant Taylors’ School. A classy 51 with the bat from Kahil Jariwala helped John Lyon to a total of 128-6 before the bowlers restricted MTs to just 41 runs all out, with three wickets each from Ismail Ahmed and Rayan Raval and four smart catches by wicket keeper Kahil Jariwala.

After three matches in five days, there was inevitable tiredness within the 1st XI squad, but that only seemed to spur the players on as they went into a very difficult Saturday calendar fixture against Westminster School and came out with a 17 run win, and a great display of batting by Yash Patel who scored 73 not out.

John Lyon’s Director of Sport, Mr Shane Cloete, said: “I want to congratulate all the players and coaches who have worked so hard for this success. To win the County Cup is a huge achievement, but to defend the title shows a great fortitude. To then follow it up with victory over Westminster — one of the very toughest fixtures — shows the incredibly high standards that are now being set and met here at John Lyon. To put on a display of consistent and quality Cricket, the likes of which are rarely seen in school sport, is an outstanding achievement.”

Youngsters show great form in first John Lyon season — With much of the sporting calendar disrupted in Autumn and Spring Terms and no competitive fixtures at all, Summer Term’s Cricket gave John Lyon’s Year 7s the chance to show what they can do when facing a real opposition. And they did not disappoint. The U12A team had a highly successful season, with seven wins from eight matches including victories over St Benedict’s School Ealing, The London Oratory School and Enfield Grammar School. They also progressed to the semi-finals of the Middlesex County Cup.