First team slump in Datchworth weather

The first team arrived in the picturesque village of Datchworth on Saturday a good half an hour before the opposition and in good spirits. The Ashraful Express especially looking like he had a crate of energy drinks before the start of the match!

The weather held up the start of the match which enabled some bonding in the changing rooms and a few games of Falldown, kindly introduced by Saqib ‘Penny’ Parkar.

Once the weather had passed Smirnoff decided to lose the toss on what was clearly a bowlers wicket, and despite a quick start from Kappa with a good 40, the scoring rate was hampered by the continual loss of wickets. No other real significant scores were made, and with the pitch being bowler friendly and what was a fantastic display of catching from the oppo we were left with just 147 on the board.

The decision was made by the skipper to take the old ball and Sat Nav and the Ashraful Express began very well with early wickets, one coming in the first over from a good catch from Penny.

With batting becoming ever easier on a pitch that appeared to lose its juice partnerships were beginning to eat into our total, and it looked like we had missed our chance to strike with a tough chance not being hung on to in the gully, which may well have been a game changer.

The Datchworth number 5 punishing anything over pitched and in the end looking very accomplished when compiling his 76*.

The first team did manage to take 2 wickets with the new ball with Dutchy and Herbie making breakthroughs, one brilliantly caught by Olay, but alas we were to come up short.

We take our travels to Bushey this week and hope for a good source of bouncebackability and will be looking for big performances from the big players.

Good luck boys!