Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club 3XI v Northwood Town II on Sat 16 May 2015 at 1:00pm
St Albans Cricket Club Won By 68 runs

Match report Another good win from St Albans IIIs against a Northwood Town team that didn't really get the rub of the green during the course of the game.

Saints won the toss and batted and opened with Jamie Regan and a welcome returnee Harsha Karunanayake. Both players hinted at an exciting opening partnership and although both fell in the mid twenties (Regan 26, Harsha 22) Saints had a solid start to the innings, unfortunately the middle order failed to fire and from a promising 51 for 1 Saints fell to 86 for 6 with only debutant Jim Everdell making double figures with a rapid 12. This brought Richard O'Toole and Steve Ferguson together and the experienced pair started the repair work with Ferguson mainly giving the strike to the free scoring O'Toole and they took the score to 120 before Ferguson fell LBW. This brought yet another debutant, Steve Hiscock to the crease and continuing the previous partnership's theme, the pair added 90 for the 8th wicket with Hiscock adding a valuable 21 before falling in the 48th over. It was during this partnership that Northwood Town lost their star batsmen as Kunal Patel sustained a nasty hand injury in the process of attempting a catch offered by O'Toole. The subsequent visit to various hospitals meant that both sides were down to ten men for a period, with Northwood Town losing more from the injury. Saints closed on a very competitive 229 for 9 off their 50 overs. A par score of 180 being comfortable surpassed due to O'Toole's invaluable 88. NT's skipper Khetia was the pick of the bowlers with 3 for 39 off his ten and he was ably supported by both his opening bowlers, Furmenger and Malik who returned 2 for 38 and 1 for 28 off their ten overs respectively.

Needing four and a half runs an over and with their best batsman unlikely to be able to return, NT needed to start positively but Hay and Everdell kept NT's openers to under three an over for the first ten overs. However no wickets were lost and with Saints still with only ten in the field the game was still on. However the run rate was up to 5 an over and the large boundaries meant that there was still much for NT to do. Skipper Eames returned to the field in the 13th over and he was able to watch as stand-in skipper O'Toole marshalled the bowlers and field placements expertly and keep the pressure consistently on the NT batsman. Both Hay and Everdell took one wicket in their opening spell and the first bowling change came with the score at 32 for 2 off 13 overs. This was a key part of the game and over the next 12 overs NT added 57 runs for the loss of just one wicket to Steve Hiscock and NT's opener Thakrar was looking more threatening or promising depending on one's view. The introduction of young off spinner Tom O'Toole was the turning point and in his third over he snared Thakrar caught behind for an excellent 48 and then followed up with Vinodh first ball. This left NT requiring over 130 to win from the last 20 overs and in effect with only 4 wickets left with Patel still absent in hospital.

Saints then turned to spin from both ends and although NT managed to score at a reasonable 4 an over during this 12 over period of the game, a further 3 wickets fell leaving Tom O'Toole with 3 for 31 off 9 and Harsha completing an excellent all round return with 2 for 23 off 6 overs. Saints then turned back to seam with Hay, Everdell and Regan having short bursts in an attempt to finish the game. Jamie Regan completed the job with his first league wicket in the adult leagues bowling skipper Khetia for a hard hitting 47.

So Saints are now 2 from 2 and to date they may have been the slightly better side in each game but key moments have certainly gone in their favour but partly because Saints have raised their game at these moments. A word to Northwood Town who looked a competitive side and many of the Saints team felt they will have a good season. The atmosphere was excellent and skipper Surmeet's positive attitude certainly ensured that the return game will be one that Saints'players will look forward to.

St Albans Cricket Club 3XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 12w 4b 4lb 
for 9 wickets
22
229		        
Harsha Karunanayake b Daly 22 1
Jamie Regan b Malik 26 3
Toby Crisp ct Furmenger 3 1
James Everdell ct Furmenger 12 2
Tom O'Toole b Khetia 3
Michael Eames lbw Khetia 6 1
Steve Ferguson lbw Khetia 9 1
Richard O'Toole b Shah 88 11 1 2
Steve Hiscock ct Shah 21 2
Rehan Ul Haq Not Out  3 1
Christian Hay Not Out  0

Northwood Town II Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Northwood Town II Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
7nb 7w 6b 1lb 
for 10 wickets
21
160 (48.1 overs)		     
Thakrar ct Crisp B T O'Toole 48
Ramawat b Everdell 6
Haji ct Ul Haq B Hay 2
Shah ct R O'Toole B Hiscock 9
Kotecha b Harsha 20
Vinodh ct R O'Toole B T O'Toole 0
Khetia b Regan 47
Daly b Harsha 3
Malik lbw T O'Toole 0
Furmenger Not Out  4
Patel  Injured

St Albans Cricket Club 3XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Christian Hay9.0121121.002.33
James Everdell8.0217117.002.13
Steve Hiscock7.0034134.004.86
Jamie Regan6.1026126.004.22
Richard O'Toole3.01200.000.67
Tom O'Toole9.0131310.333.44
Harsha Karunanayake6.0123211.503.83

  • Umpire :
    All of us
  • Scorer :
    As above