A Much Deserved Victory

This past week saw a return to winning ways for the first XI as we took on West Herts. It was the annual Summer Soulstice this Saturday and so our game was moved to Elstree. The weather was overcast & windy and the pitch was one on which the bowlers would find more reward than the batsman.

And so to the toss and yet another win for me, I gladly invited the opposition skipper to have a bat. Matt Holland and Alex Herbert opened the bowling and both found lifting deliveries off good lengths and some movement in the air. It wasn’t long before we had a breakthrough when Matt Holland drew an edge and the catch was taken by Miles. A stubborn partnership followed before Harshad Patel dismissed 2 wickets in 2 balls. H continued to bowl a probing line just on or outside the off stump which led to his third wicket a few overs later. We entered the last 15 overs with West Herts having not reached three figures, the wicket was difficult to bat on but this was only enhanced by a very good bowling display. As the West Herts batsman began to open their houlders, there were wickets for Matt (3-48), Nav (1-37) and a first wicket in the first XI for 15 year old Alex Herbert (1-26) who bowled with good pace and an exceptional line in his two spells.

We were left with a target of 155 from 47 overs, the pitch wasn’t easy to bat on but we set about our run-chase with positivity. We suffered two early setbacks with both openers, Miles & myself both dismissed with the score on 24. A partnership of  67 between Navaid Akhtar (55) and Matthew Heavey (25) saw the total to 91-3. Nav played well and pounced on anything wide of his off stump. When Nav fell with the score on 111, a partnership of 38 effectively saw us home between Matthew Holland (30*) and Robert Dunn (18) to our first win since the opening day of the season.

We all know this is a long overdue win and will look to make it 2 in 2 with our visit to Luton Town & Indians next week.

Scorecard