Scorecard

Berkhamsted Cricket Club 1st XI v Cheshunt on Sat 17 May 2014 at 1pm
Berkhamsted Cricket Club Lost By 4 wickets

Match report It was an interesting week in getting the team together. The spanner thrown into the works this time was provided by the UK Border Agency who denied our overseas player a visa 3 hours before he was due to get on a flight. So they let in Abu Hamza but a 22 year old South African wanting to play cricket raises question marks?

As Arsenal were preparing to end their 10 year wait for a trophy against Hull in the FA Cup final, the youngsters were attempting to finish their own barren run against the oldies in the pre-match footie warm up game. With a few new faces amongst the oldies starting line up the youngsters smelt blood. As so it went, like Sir Alex leaving Manchester United the protracted dominance from the old boys was lost and the youngster managed to scrap a 1-0 victory.

Anyway it was a glorious Saturday afternoon as Berkhamsted hosted Cheshunt. The opposition won the toss and elected to field. New summer signing, Ed Parkes, who was acquired in the offseason from Melbourne Victory opened up with Gareth. The pair got us off to an assured start until the Aussie was undone by what looked suspiciously looked like a straight one. Having not batted for the best part of 10 years he can be forgiven. Ollie, thinking he still has his reactions from 10 years ago, followed swiftly afterwards attempting a hook while the skipper picked out the very big hands of their very big non bowling West Indian. After playing patiently from the start, Gareth was just starting to get going when he was bowled round his legs. This left the team precariously positioned at 50 for 4. While this was going on chatter on the decking was surprisingly high brow led by 1st XI debutant Tom. I must admit at times he discombobulated the rest of us with his plethoric vocabulary

Back to the cricket and Riaz had joined Luke in the middle. With the team up the proverbial creek the two provider the paddle to steer us to safety. Both played sensibly pushing the singles around early on before starting to attack towards the end. Both deserved half centuries but smokers lung got the better of Luke and he left shattered while Riaz put in some lusty blows to accelerate passed 50. Clearly the skippers tinkering with the order had paid off with Riaz in a genuine batters position making him bat properly. In any case they had produced a great partnership to see us through and set a competitive total of 185. It was probably a few short but at 50/4 I would have bitten the arm off a leper for 185.

So into the field we went looking for a few early wickets. Jack and Josh went up the hill to bowl the opening overs, Jack bowled right to keep it tight but josh had the stumps tumbling over. With the opposition one down the skipper was forced to change the bowling by the ridiculous "they maybe 18 and can drink, drive, vote, get married etc but can only bowl 7 overs spells in the Herts League" rule. He turned to Riaz's spin and his own medium to very slow pacers. The indignity of being asked if the keeper should stand up before I'd even bowled a ball is never nice. Riaz bowled well, the skipper less so but he had to find 7 overs from somewhere. The opposition captain was batting well and playing some nice shots while their opener had clearly read "The art of blocking" written by Berkhamsted's own Jamie Lewis. Despite this the scoreboard was ticking over and Stephenson starting to take the game away from us. Josh came back on from the pavilion end and immediately had their opener caught in the covers. With that break through, Riaz started to make inroads at the other end and we had them 5 down. With overs running out we needed to get their captain out if we were to have any chance. And finally we did. New boy David "Bucket Hands" Kennedy snagged him in the slips. Game on.

Unfortunately their burly No 7 had other ideas and two full tosses were dealt with in the most painful way and suddenly we had lost. We had battled back from two poor positions but we just weren't good enough on the day. So disappointing to have now lost two from two and although it's still early in the season we need to start winning games to have a chance of promotion. 14 points from the game and a trip to St Albans up next week.

Man of the match goes to Riaz for his all-round performance.

Berkhamsted Cricket Club 1st XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
1w 7b 10lb 
for 6 wickets
18
185		        
Ed Parkes b A Richardson 9 18 21 1 42.86
Gareth Preedy b T McGowan 20 70 66 3 30.30 1
Ollie Chinneck ct B Phillips b A Richardson 11 19 14 2 78.57 1
David Smith ct K Grant b T McGowan 1 23 16 6.25
Luke Frey ct K Grant b L Morris 43 77 77 4 55.84
Riaz Richards ct S Worboys b L Morris 69 87 88 8 2 78.41
Jamie Lewis Not Out  13 27 30 2 43.33
David Kennedy Not Out  1 10 6 16.67 1
Tom Hadden  
Joshua Roberts  
Jack Hunter  

Cheshunt Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Luke Morris13.0140220.003.08
Aidan Richardson13.0543221.503.31
Sam Stephenson13.023300.002.54
Philip England5.012000.004.00
Tom McGowan9.0032216.003.56

Cheshunt Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 11w 6b 6lb 
for 6 wickets
26
189 (45.3 overs)		     
Spencer Worboys b J Roberts 5 24 26 19.23
Matt Richardson ct O Chinneck b J Roberts 26 100 80 2 32.50
Sam Stephenson ct D Kennedy b R Richards 77 123 105 10 73.33
Stephen Dean b R Richards 0 2 3 0
Kevin Grant st G Preedy b R Richards 21 27 31 4 67.74
Tom McGowan lbw R Richards 1 4 7 14.29
Ben Phillips Not Out  29 21 21 2 2 138.10
Mark Brooks Not Out  4 11 4 1 100
Aidan Richardson  
Luke Morris  
Philip England  

Berkhamsted Cricket Club 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Joshua Roberts14.0346223.003.29
Jack Hunter8.313400.004.00
Riaz Richards16.0058414.503.63
David Smith7.003900.005.57

  • Umpire :
    Micky
  • Scorer :
    Sarah