Sessay Cricket Club duo Karl Carver and Jess Watson have been celebrating a momentous year in which both have represented club and country at their respective levels.

Seventeen-year-old left-arm spinner Carver, whose year began with a pre-season training camp in Sri Lanka as a member of the full Yorkshire CCC squad, played regularly for the Yorkshire Academy XI in the Yorkshire League during the summer.

He finished the season with 35 wickets, a feat which resulted in him receiving the Academy’s Player of the Year award.

That success consequently saw him make regular appearances in Yorkshire’s second XI, and his figures of 6-43 against Middlesex helped him earn a call-up to Tykes’ first XI squad for the final County Championship fixture against Surrey at the Oval – though he narrowly missed out on selection.

Carver’s dramatic progress was not only noted by Yorkshire CCC head coach, Jason Gillespie, but also by ECB national performance manager David Graveney, who selected him as a member of the England Under-19 team for all five games of their tri-series against Pakistan and Bangladesh in August and two games of their recent tournament in the UAE involving the hosts and Pakistan.

Watson has also tasted much success this year.

A member of both the England Women’s Academy tour to Sri Lanka in March and captain of their recent tour to South Africa, Watson has been an ever-present among the England Women’s set-up over the past 12 months.

In September 2012, Watson had her first taste of international cricket when she played in two T20 matches against Pakistan.

Fast forward 14 months to the last weekend of October, and the Sessay and Yorkshire cricketer returned triumphant from South Africa having skippered England Women U19s to a 2-1 defeat across the three T20s but a 3-0 whitewash of the South Africa Emerging Players (Women) during a three-match one-day international series on their inaugural foreign tour.

Watson, who herself made an unbeaten 80 in her side’s defeat of South Africa in the final T20, was excited to have taken on the captaincy.

She said: “It came as a big surprise but it was such an exciting opportunity and I was really honoured to accept.”

The captain of Sessay’s first XI, Stephen Langstaff, said: “It is a fantastic achievement for any club to have one junior international cricketer but to have two is a credit to the club and the flourishing junior system we have at Sessay.

“Both Karl and Jess are cracking kids who work really hard and have been at Sessay since they were seven or eight and deserve all the success that they have had.”