Leicestershire Juniors competed in the Midland team Championships on the 25th February at Nottingham High School. Many children were making their debut playing for the county. The U9 team finished an unexpected and excellent clear 3rd behind strong teams from Northants and Nottingham on 12.5 points (out of 24). It was a good all round team performance with points from all parts of the team but of particular note was Danilo Palanac, who won both his 2nd/3rd round games having had a bye in the 1st round. The U11 Girls finished a respectable 4th on 8pts (out of 18), 2 points behind Northants in 3rd (Notts A and B were 1st and 2nd). Everyone scored points for the team but Zaara Syed and Ayesha Narvel both showed their rapid progress this season to score 2pts and 1.5pts respectively from their three games. The U11 section was tough but Leicestershire scored a solid 5pts each round to finish in 5th on 15pts (out of 36). A particular thanks to the 4 U9s who moved up an age category to help out the team and who would otherwise have been playing for the U9 team. Jason LV had an outstanding competition scoring 3 out of 3 on board 2/3 of the U11s and Anika Khare was unbeaten and close to matching that on the hot seat that is board 1. Kareem Patel and Luke Powell had excellent county debuts in that section scoring 2pt and 1.5 pts respectively.
U11 Team: Anika Khare, Umar Syed, Jason LV, Austin Meynell, Luke Powell, Ashish Singh, Kareem Patel, Jack Proctor, Jeremiah Simon, Dhian Shah (U9), Niklas Saukko-Paavola (U9), Arnav Rai (U9), Khalid Patel (U9)
U11 Girls Team: Hope Wheway, Hafsa Syed, Zaara Syed, Emma Abel, Ayesha Narvel, Catherine LV
U9 Team: Arjun Vadgama, Evan Miles, Morris Walker, Arooj Mahajan, Alex Cimurs, Anant Kapoor, Danilo Palanac, Zahra Hardman