Scorecard

Welwyn Garden City CC 2nd XI v St Albans Cricket Club 2XI on Sat 14 Jun 2025 at 12:00
St Albans Cricket Club Lost by 58 runs

Match report St Albans II lose to Welwyn Garden City II by 58 runs

Welwyn appeared a total paradise on arrival, with very timely efforts to the meet time (only one person missing the cut off, and by just 3 minutes). The pitch resembled a highway, rock solid and seemingly pretty flat, with obvious fast outfields and boundaries not far out either. The warmup started with the reintroduction of football, which hit us with an early Rory Burns-esque injury to Bancroft. It's still unclear whether he tweaked his calf shadow batting or playing football, but I suspect it was a combination of the two. Team "not got 1s training kit" pulled off a surprising win against the team with more players. Badsy (new head of warmups) got the speaker out and a pretty good warmup ensued. Things felt so positive until the skipper proved the adage of "tails never fails" is in fact complete nonsense. Fielding first in the heat.

Over the last few weeks the 2s have bowled excellently, save the first 10 overs of the game. This week was no exception. DH and Chen (or as the scorers knew him, G.Nut) took the new ball after Chen had made all the batters look rubbish on Tuesday. DH struggled with the LHB/RHB combination and Chen struggled to find his lengths, and Totteridge started briskly. When DH cleaned up Welwyn's gun bat (Howgego) with a beauty, 70 was already on the board after 8 overs. A change required, Winners stepped up after an impressively responsible Friday night. Immediately he found the wicket of the other opener, chipped straight back to him off the knuckle ball. DH then got #4 out with an LBW, given so quickly by the umpire that the cordon didn't have time to appeal. It's fair to say the batter wasn't impressed.

Then the whole tempo of the game changed, as Welwyn's number 5 decided to spend his 41 ball stay timing the pants off forward defensive shots straight to fielders. Number 3 did similar, only really putting away loose balls (there were always some), and the run rate dropped like a stone. DRoss pulled the two wickets to end the partnership, exhibiting the best burglary skills since the Pink Panther as he perfected the short ball sitting up on leg with fielders right in place to catch the loose shots. 7, 8 and 9 came and went, all playing rash shots and generally looking like they'd forgotten to come up with a plan on how to bat.

Unfortunately, this was where things started to go wrong. Number 10 came in and stuck around with their skipper, putting on a 70+ run partnership that killed our spirits going into the innings break. Far too many wides and loose balls, and some bridging in the field didn't help our case. DH got the two wickets, ending with 4 on the day, but Welwyn ended up with 223 all out, at least 50 more than should have been given the position they were in.

One key reason for the squeeze was Ben Adshead, who deserves his own paragraph in this report. 10 on the bounce, only conceding 19. No loose deliveries at all and massively deserving of at least a wicket from the spell. He took charge when we weren't bowling tightly and bowled an excellent spell, not only bringing us back into the game, but putting us on top of it. Well bowled Badsy.

They'd scored more than expected, but the Saints were ever confident they could chase it going into the half-time break. Caswell and Law possibly rattled after their skipper had had a go at them for yobbing kids (after some disgraceful no ball decisions from the square leg umpires, one that would have hit the knee roll of the batter who had advanced down the ground...). Cawood and Bancroft were chosen to open and to reignite their partnership from years previous.

We started well, Cawood and Bancroft looking a little fortunate initially but putting bad balls away, they brought up a fifty partnership without much of a sweat. Life felt good. Then, sadly, the calypso. Cawood out slog-sweeping for a well-made 37, Buzz out LBW for 23, and Law chopping on. Cas, Jithin and Winners followed suit (Winners walking proving somewhat controversial, but he did absolutely smash it). The only two men who put up any fight after the opening stand were Westy and DH, Westy falling for a solid-looking 26 and DH putting 27 on at 9, with some excellent hitting in the V, one positive for the captain to take to next week. It was a pretty abject batting performance and Welwyn took their chances. Onto the next, at home against Wheathampstead (as some dub it, the Andy Wright derby).

MOTM - Badsy (10/5/19/0)
DOTD - DRoss
Shot of the day - DH lofted drive over extra cover

(Report: Rory Law)

St Albans Cricket Club 2XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 13w 3b 1lb 
for 10 wickets
20
165		        
Will Bancroft lbw T Howgego 23 41 4 56.10
Ben Cawood ct A Desai b R Yadav 37 48 6 1 77.08
Zach West ct O Tucker b T Howgego 26 49 4 53.06
Rory Law b T Howgego 4 6 1 66.67
James Caswell ct E Tucker b R Yadav 9 13 2 69.23
Jithin Balan lbw T Howgego 3 17 17.65
Jacob Winfield ct L Spong b S Bridgewater 1 6 16.67 1
Ben Adshead ct O Tucker b S Bridgewater 7 11 63.64
Daniel Harvey ct R Yadav b S Bridgewater 27 34 6 79.41
Aidan Chennells b T Whitton 7 31 22.58
Daniel Rosson Not Out  1 6 16.67

Welwyn Garden City CC 2nd XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Oliver Hewitt3.001100.003.67
Thomas Whitton4.1023123.005.52
Andrew Fennell5.003400.006.80
Ritik Yadav10.0231215.503.10
Tommy Howgego10.012746.752.70
Simon Bridgewater10.032739.002.70
Kashyap Shah1.00800.008.00

Welwyn Garden City CC 2nd XI Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
5nb 25w 1b 8lb 
for 10 wickets
39
223 (49.1 overs)		     
Arnav Desai ct J Winfield b J Winfield 22 30 4 73.33
Tommy Howgego b D Harvey 16 20 4 80.0
Oliver Tucker ct Unsure b D Rosson 41 72 6 56.94
Kashyap Shah lbw D Harvey 0 5 0
Oliver Hewitt ct Unsure b D Rosson 10 41 2 24.39
Edward Tucker ct Unsure b D Harvey 46 66 5 1 69.70
Lucas Spong ct Unsure b D Rosson 11 13 2 84.62
Thomas Whitton ct Unsure b A Chennells 5 6 1 83.33
Ritik Yadav ct Unsure b J Winfield 5 5 1 100
Andrew Fennell ct Unsure b D Harvey 28 42 4 66.67
Simon Bridgewater Not Out  0 1 0

St Albans Cricket Club 2XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Daniel Harvey9.1050412.505.45
Aidan Chennells10.0048148.004.80
Jacob Winfield10.0137218.503.70
Ben Adshead10.051900.001.90
Daniel Rosson10.0060320.006.00

  • Umpire :
    Tim
  • Scorer :
    Us