Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club Sunday 2nd XI v N2 CC on Sun 09 May 2021 at 1:00pm
St Albans Cricket Club Won by 8 runs

Match report After the deluge of Saturday, Sunday dawned calm and dry with prospects of play good.

The Sandpit Lane square had benefited from the recent rain looking lush and healthy, and a morning cut and roll had left the wicket looking as good as it has done for some years.

St Albans lost the toss and were asked to bat. With a bowling-biased team this wouldn’t have been the first choice on the drying, green tinged wicket but Ed Lowe and Harry Knill-Jones strapped on the pads and shouldered arms.

The in-form Ed was soon tempted by a wide half volley and scooped one to gully to depart for 1, with Harry finding some rhythm and looking set before he too was caught on 20. Charlie Parkinson in his first game of the season got a golden as he was bowled by Abbas off one that looped in.

All the ‘recognized’ batsmen in the team gone for 21.

New member Dulon Ahmed added 11 before he too was castled by Abbas (who went on to get an impressive 5’fer), which brought fellow new boy Prath Khatavkar to the crease alongside the veteran skipper Andy Saunders, making a surprise appearance up the order.

The duo started to rebuild the innings with Prath taking a controlled, aggressive stance and punishing the bad balls and Saunders more circumspect, nurdling the ball into the gaps and conceding the strike where possible to Prath who went on to notch 67*, a huge contribution in the context of the game. The partnership put on 77 taking the score from a worrying 52-6 to a more competitive 129.

Saunders was eventually bowled on 22 trying to accelerate the run rate which brought another new member, wicketkeeper Ben Geytenbeek to the middle to support Prath adding 9 and with Tom Bentley’s 1* taking the eventual total to what felt like a defendable 151-8.

The N2CC innings started cautiously with Saints opening pair of Altaf Hussain and Tom Bentley bowling well to keep the batsmen wary. Altaf made the breakthrough in his second over, clean bowling Hingorani , which brought the opposition’s destructive number three R Davids to the crease. A hard hitting, helmetless biffer carrying an all-black bat he smashed his first ball for 4 and laid down a marker from the start -he wasn’t going to die wondering.

Things weren’t helped with the departure of Ed Lowe from the field with a damaged finger – his trip to A&E thankfully revealing just bruising.

Altaf (1-20) and Tom (0-24) finished decent spells and Andrew Melling and debutant Ian Ireland came on first change to try their hands against the ever growing in confidence Davids. Ireland tucked him up nicely, bowling into his body and stopping him freeing his arms, a smart tactic that saw him finish with excellent figures of 1-6 from his 5 overs. Andrew’s medium pace was more to David’s liking though and though he bowled good lines they were in Davids’ sweet spot and he piled on the pressure with some brutal range hitting. He did snag the other opener LBW though with a cracking, inswinging ball.

The second bowling change saw Saunders bring himself and Ciaran Walsh on, the younger man ordered to run uphill into the wind. The change of pace proved decisive with Walsh’s baffling wobblers proving too tempting to Davids who was clean bowled attempting an extravagant sweep shot. With Saunders tying down one end with his miserly slow left armers (1-16), Ciaran caused chaos from the Sandpit Lane end, steadily picking up wickets thanks to some good catching and a great stumping from Geytenbeek , racheting up the pressure as the N2CC batsmen came and went . A first ever and well-deserved 5’fer was duly achieved by Ciaran who finished with match winning figures of 5-32 from his 8 overs.

With 9 wickets down and 8 runs needed Walsh and Saunders finished their spells – Altaf and HKJ coming on to bowl the death overs.

The game ended in farce as the two batsmen desperately trying to score got themselves into an almighty “yes, no” tangle in the middle and it was left to Ben to joyfully remove the bails to seal a welcome and much celebrated victory.

This was a great team effort, with a number of new faces turning out for the club and everyone contributing - a performance of real character throughout.

St Albans Cricket Club Sunday 2nd XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 4w 7b 1lb 
for 8 wickets
13
151		        
Harry Knill-Jones ct Rawaty 20
Ed Lowe ct Abbas 1
Charlie Parkinson b Abbas 0
Dulon Ahmed b Abbas 11
Prath Khatavkar Not Out  67
Andrew Melling Run out  2
Md Altaf Husain st Saj 0
Andy Saunders b Abbas 22
Ben Geytenbeek lbw Abbas 9
Ian Ireland Not Out  1
Ciarán Walsh  

N2 CC Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Rawaty8.0030130.003.75
Abbas8.022254.402.75
Shai8.023400.004.25
Saj8.0234134.004.25
Dyer8.002000.002.50

N2 CC Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
4nb 4w 9b 2lb 
for 10 wickets
19
144 (39.2 overs)		     
Hingorani D b Hussain 1
Rawat lbw Melling 12
Davids b Walsh 72
Alam ct Ireland 2
Hirani K ct Walsh 15
Hirani D lbw Walsh 0
Hingorani S st Walsh 10
Abbas b Saunders 0
Rawaty ct Walsh 8
Dyer Not Out  3
Bhatt Run out  2

St Albans Cricket Club Sunday 2nd XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Md Altaf Husain7.0220120.002.86
Tom Bentley5.002400.004.80
Andrew Melling5.0135135.007.00
Ian Ireland5.01616.001.20
Ciarán Walsh8.013256.404.00
Andy Saunders8.0216116.002.00
Harry Knill-Jones0.20000.000.00