St Albans Cricket Club 1XI v Hertford on Sat 23 Jun 2001 at
St Albans Cricket Club Lost
After winning the toss the Hertford captain had no hesitation in batting first on a track that looked like the middle lane of the M1 laid in the middle of the Hertford square, together with the sun beating down on a hot afternoon. The wicket proved to be as big a road as suspected with Hertford dispatching the ball to all corners of the ground with 200 coming up for loss of no wickets in the 35th over. The omens were not good. However both McGreggor and Swanton managed to exert a little control but the home side still managed to total 311 for 4 in only 53 overs.
A disasterous start saw Saints reduced to 15 for 3 and 45 for 5. Nick Gilbert, however, was in fine form and he took the home sides bowling attack on. Wickets fell at regular intervals at the other end until O'Toole, batting at No.9 joined Gilbert. The pair took the score passed the 150 mark and appoached 200, when trying to run a 3rd run, Gilbert was run out for an excellent 74. It was left to O'Toole to try and coax the tail through the final overs. With the wicket still like the middle lane of the M1 O'Toole helped himself to regular boundaries, smashing both seamers and spinners to the boundary in a one man onslaught on the Hertford attack. Having reached 250 Saints lost their 9th wicket when Crofts was caught behind for 17. O'Toole completed his well deserved 100 and was looking to attack the bowling further in an attempt to reach the target of 311. Trying once to often to whip the ball through midwicket O'Toole was LBW and the fighting reargaurd action was eneded.
A lesson was learnt that with the strength in depth of the batting line up the importance of keeping wickets in hand was shown to be of the utmost importance!!
St Albans Cricket Club 1XI Batting
261 for 10
Hertford Bowling
Hertford Batting
311 for 4
St Albans Cricket Club 1XI Bowling