Scorecard

Berkhamsted Cricket Club 1st XI v Northchurch on Sat 11 Jul 2020 at 1pm
Berkhamsted Cricket Club Won By 4 wickets

Match report As the quote goes “There can be no summer in England without cricket”, summer well and truly started for all cricket lovers on Saturday and for us hosting a friendly match against local rivals Northchurch. And what a day it was! perfect cricket weather, if a little windy – but that did not stop the crowds of supporters from both clubs sunning themselves on the outfield and drinking Jim dry of his supplies. Starved of cricket (but not of food in the case of some of the team, you know who you are!) and after 110 days of lockdown we were desperate to get the season under way and play again.
There had been no trouble putting a team together as availability was high -well where else could you be going? Training had been well attended since allowed by the ECB and as soon as Boris decided we could play, we were raring to go. Thanks to our ground staff’s hard work throughout lockdown, we were ready to put on a match. Now to get our heads around the new rules and restrictions ………
The opposition arrived early and we won the toss and put them into bat. This was new head coach James’ first outing for the club and he and Adam opened the bowling. James took the first wicket of the one opener and then Josh the second. We were on a roll when Finn making his debut got their number 3 lbw. It got even better for us when two quick run outs by James and Luke followed. Unfortunately celebrations were awkwardly socially distant but made up for by the spectators who seemed not to be under the same restrictions! Unfortunately the opposition numbers 7 and 8 managed to put on a good score while our bowlers suffered from first match tiredness. Jack eventually took 3 and Nathaniel cleared up the tail with two. Generally the bowling performance was well spread around with good work in the field. We even got used to (and given the level of fitness, probably needed) the rest when the vector of disease was cleaned every 6 overs armed with our handy pocket hand sanitisers. The opposition ended their innings with what seemed a reasonable total of 170 runs for us to beat.
Innings break and the traditional cricket tea had disappeared in this new era of cricket although we could have gone to a restaurant or pub together. Never mind, after a quick bite of our packed lunches, we were ready to bat. We opened with Alan and Nathaniel. It was a slow start and the opposition bowled well or maybe we were rusty. Unfortunately Nathaniel fell after 24 balls to a good ball from the opposition opener. Luckily Alan stuck around as Ian went soon after. Then Luke came in and between him and Alan put on 50’s each. It seemed we were well on our way to make the score when they both went for 56 (Luke) and 51 (Alan) but then it looked worrying when after a steady 17 by Mark, there were some quick wickets and it looked like we were running out of balls to make the score. So from what looked an easy target became a close match which was won by Berkhamsted by 4 wickets on the performances of Luke and Alan and some help from 18 extras probably as a result of first match rustiness.
Northchurch were as usual a team that played with good spirit and for both teams it was an excellent warm up to the beginning of the league on the 18th. Unable to shake hands both teams walked past and clapped. The season had begun – a bit later than we had hoped but for many of us a bit of normality had returned. By the time we had enjoyed after match pints and fines, it felt like nothing had changed!
Man of the match was Alan for his excellent batting performance.
Off to Stevenage next Saturday for the start of the league.

Northchurch Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
8nb 16w 2b 3lb 
for 10 wickets
29
170 (44.1 overs)		     
George Living ct  A Gofton b J Bell 5 27 1 18.52
Saf Khan ct  F Mortimore b J Roberts 13 19 2 68.42
Jules Swain lbw  F Mortimore 2 11 18.18
Tom Garraway run out  (James Bell/Mark Costin) 10 23 1 43.48
Joel James run out  (Luke Frey/Mark Costin) 7 38 18.42
Matthew Suckling b  J Hunter 13 25 1 52.00
Mark Hobley ct  A Scotcher b J Hunter 42 63 6 66.67
Henry Beckson b  J Hunter 38 42 3 2 90.48
Callum Lindsay st  M Costin b N Cunnold 0 3 0
Harry Chapman Not Out  6 11 54.55
Harry Bennie ct  M Costin b N Cunnold 5 9 55.56

Berkhamsted Cricket Club 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
James Bell6.0023123.003.83
Adam Scotcher6.013300.005.50
Finn Mortimore6.0122122.003.67
Joshua Roberts6.0225125.004.17
Nathaniel Cunnold7.111628.002.23
Jack Hunter7.012538.333.57
Alan Gofton3.00400.001.33
Gareth Preedy3.001700.005.67

Berkhamsted Cricket Club 1st XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
9nb 8w 1b  
for 6 wickets
18
171		        
Alan Gofton lbw  C Lindsay 51 82 6 1 62.20 1
Nathaniel Cunnold b  H Bennie 6 24 25.00
Ian Bartholomew b  C Lindsay 6 39 15.38
Luke Frey b  T Garraway 56 80 9 70.0
Mark Costin ct  H Chapman b H Chapman 17 17 1 100 1 1 2
Adam Scotcher Not Out  9 20 1 45.00 1
Gareth Preedy b  S Khan 0 4 0
Joshua Roberts Not Out  8 6 1 133.33
Jack Hunter  
Finn Mortimore   1
James Bell  

Northchurch Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Harry Bennie8.0128128.003.50
Saf Khan6.5116116.002.34
Henry Beckson6.002800.004.67
Callum Lindsay9.0132216.003.56
Harry Chapman9.0052152.005.78
Tom Garraway5.0214114.002.80

  • Umpire :
    Guy Lewis
  • Scorer :
    Sarah