Eltham College student gets cricket world talking after stunning batting effort

Upper Sixth Form student George Haley hit a staggering 22 sixes and 16 fours on his way to reaching 208 not out, breaking the previous school individual scoring record by 41 runs.

The 17-year-old’s achievements have not gone unnoticed in the cricketing world, with interest already from several national newspapers, but at the time he had no idea just how impressive his efforts would prove.

Haley told News Shopper: “At first the main objective was obviously about qualifying for the nationals and then I just got going.

“When I was on about 80 I realised I could get to a century.

“I kept going and at 130 I remember saying to my partner ‘get me a strike because I want to beat the school record’.

“At first I thought the school record was 150 but it turns out it was 167.

“When I got my 150 I think there were only five overs left so it was all about just hitting everything.

“Everyone clapped when I reached 170 having beaten the record and then in the last two or three overs it was just a case of head down trying to hit everything.”

And news of Haley’s feat had already quickly spread by the time the game had finished, as the talented sportsman recalls.

“My teacher tweeted about it and he emailed one of our old boys who plays with my brother, so my brother found out and told my cousins,” he said.

“Then when I came off the pitch I had about ten missed phone calls before I’d even had the chance to tell anyone what had happened.”

The Bexley youngster has played cricket for eight years but decided after getting a knockback from county selectors to concentrate mainly on his other sporting passion instead.

Haley explained: “Cricket was my main sport but I started playing golf at 14.

“I had Kent cricket trials for two years in a row but didn’t get in.

“The second time I was really disappointed because I played really well and once that happened I said to my dad that I want to focus on golf now because my golf was kicking off.

“My brother is still captain of Bexley’s second team and last year he would call me up if he was short of a player so I played in three games.”

He added: “This year I’m going to try and play properly and tie it in with my golf.

“I got into Kent golf squad two years ago, got into the actual team this year and golf has become my main sport.

“My dad is big into golf so he got me into it really. Dartford is my club.

“I used to be a very good tennis player when I was younger and if you play tennis it helps with golf massively so I picked it up really quickly.

“I played for Dartford’s first team at adult level last year and I got into a round robin for the best six players at the club.”

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