Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club 4XI v Botany Bay CC 2nd XI on Sat 05 Sep 2026 at 13:00
St Albans Cricket Club Lost by 4 wickets

Match report The curtain came down on the Tad Casuals’ 2026 league campaign at SLCG on Saturday, with St Albans 4XI slipping to a 28-run defeat against Botany Bay 2XI in the final game of the season.

Having won the toss, captain Sam Davey stuck with his now familiar tactic of bowling first, with Saints hoping to restrict the visitors to a manageable total before completing a league double over the Bay following their victory in the reverse fixture earlier in the summer.

The decision initially looked a good one. St Albans bowled with discipline and kept Botany Bay under pressure, with the opening pair of Abhishek Roy-Choudhury and Ryan Magee particularly tight and economical, conceding just 25 runs between them from 12 overs, including four maidens.

Jamie Telkman, Andy Saunders, and Yusuf Mayet all picked up a wicket apiece while Ethan Witty had probably his most consistent spell with the ball this season pocketing 2-28 from his six overs.

Botany Bay’s sixth wicket fell courtesy of a piece of Sam Davey magic in the field (at the third attempt to be fair), producing a stunning direct hit run-out to ensure the visitors were kept in check throughout their 40 overs.

The difference for Botany Bay was opener Mark McCabe. While wickets fell around him, McCabe patiently occupied, (or some might say “doored” it) from one end and carried his bat for an unbeaten 55 from 101 balls, providing the backbone of an innings that eventually closed on a below par 142-6.

A target of 143 was far from intimidating, but frankly Saints needed someone to play the sort of innings McCabe had produced for the visitors. Unfortunately, nobody, not for the first time this campaign, quite managed it.

Hugo Thomas top-scored with 17 before getting a shocker of a decision (we’ve never seen him so peeved), Yusuf Mayet made 16 and Daiwik Khedekar contributed 12, but wickets once again fell too regularly for any meaningful partnership to develop.

Captain Sam Davey briefly threatened to inject some momentum with a characteristically brisk 8 from six balls, while Ryan Magee and Abhishek Roy-Choudhury both made 10.

The lower-order resistance could not quite rescue things with Andy Saunders making a season high 8 runs before being bowled by the division’s top wicket taker Shah Khan, leaving Roy-Choudhury unbeaten on 10 as Saints were dismissed for 114 inside 30 overs, 28 runs short of their target.

Another desperately disappointing performance with the bat that has been the hallmark of the Tad Casuals season.

The defeat left St Albans to finish the season in sixth place in Division 9E, a solid enough position, but perhaps a slightly underwhelming one given some of the cricket the side produced during the early part of the campaign.

At their best, the Tad Casuals showed they were capable of competing with and beating the stronger sides in the division, but inconsistency ultimately prevented them from turning an acceptable mid-table campaign into something more ambitious.

The recurring problem was , of course , batting and too often losing what batting they did have to sides playing the higher divisions.

The 4XI were rarely short of willing and highly capable bowlers during the season, indeed it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say we had the best bowling unit in the division, but finding enough specialist batsmen to put substantial totals on the board proved considerably more difficult. Too often the bowlers were asked either to defend totals that left them virtually no margin for error or, having done their job with the ball, to contribute rather more with the bat than was probably included in the original job description.

So, with preparations for 2027 already unofficially underway, the Tad Casuals would like to make an early appeal: if anyone knows any decent batsmen, please introduce them to Sam Davey before next May. No reasonable offer refused.

And so ended another eventful 4XI season.

There have been impressive wins, frustrating defeats, questionable pitches, mad rain-soaked games , darkness, Spanish lessons, accusations of match fixing, the birth of the Tad Casuals and, occasionally, some actual cricket.

Most importantly, the side once again provided exactly what a 4XI should: competitive league cricket alongside opportunities for younger players to develop and older players to discover just how much everything hurts on a Sunday morning.

The final result - and perhaps the final league position -may not have been quite what the Tad Casuals wanted, but there has rarely been a dull Saturday.

Roll on 2027.

Botany Bay CC 2nd XI Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
5w 8b 6lb 
for 6 wickets
19
142 (40.0 overs)		     
Mark McCabe Not Out  55 101 5 54.46
Ali White ct  Unsure b J Telkman 25 62 4 40.32
Sam Skitt b  A Saunders 2 19 10.53
Hemanth Tummala b  Y Mayet 15 28 1 53.57
Shah Khan lbw  E Witty 0 2 0
Matt Gascoigne b  E Witty 13 17 2 76.47
Pranav Dave run out  (Unsure) 6 6 1 100
Jack Andrews Not Out  7 6 1 116.67
George Canty  
Jishnu Chatterji  
Craig Evans-Bird  

St Albans Cricket Club 4XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Abhishek Roy-Choudhury6.021200.002.00
Ryan Magee6.021300.002.17
Andy Saunders8.0128128.003.50
Jamie Telkman8.0117117.002.13
Ethan Witty6.0028214.004.67
Yusuf Mayet6.0030130.005.00

St Albans Cricket Club 4XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
7w 3b 7lb 
for 10 wickets
17
114		        
Hugo Thomas ct  M Gascoigne b P Dave 17 26 3 65.38
James Grant b  J Chatterji 9 15 2 60.0
Daiwik Khedekar ct  J Andrews b C Evans-Bird 12 28 1 42.86
Yusuf Mayet b  G Canty 16 23 3 69.57
Zac (Isaac) Johnson b  G Canty 4 17 23.53
Sam Davey b  C Evans-Bird 8 6 2 133.33
Ethan Witty b  S Khan 2 12 16.67
Jamie Telkman lbw  C Evans-Bird 1 5 20.0
Ryan Magee b  C Evans-Bird 10 24 1 41.67
Abhishek Roy-Choudhury Not Out  10 11 1 90.91
Andy Saunders b  S Khan 8 9 1 88.89

Botany Bay CC 2nd XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Jishnu Chatterji8.0129129.003.63
Pranav Dave5.0020120.004.00
George Canty6.001628.002.67
Craig Evans-Bird7.003448.504.86
Shah Khan3.20522.501.50