Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club 2XI v Ampthill Town II on Sat 21 May 2022 at 12:00
St Albans Cricket Club Won by 9 Wickets

Match report With self-proclaimed "supreme leader" Coulman unavailable due to attending a wedding, it was left to the old hands of Matt Howeson to lead the 2s at Clarence Park in pursuit of back to back wins. Having successfully completed the toss (and then even started the game on time), the 2s were asked to field, with Howeson deploring his men to "wipe the smug looks off" Ampthill's faces given the good looking deck prepared by Mr Caley.

St Albans started well, and were unlucky to be wicketless through the early stages of the innings, with two drops in the cordon off the bowling of May, and White causing all sorts of trouble for their right-handed opener at the other end. Indeed, it was White who finally put said batsman out of his misery, nibbling one through the gate -- an archetypal dismissal in the middle of an archetypal spell.

It was Sammy Kumar who was next in the action, with smart catches from O'Toole and then Caswell to remove Ampthill's dangerous looking left-handed opener who top scored with 39. Despite the odd poor ball from all parties, the Kumar-Hall-Murphy spin axis generally bowled well, producing wickets at timely moments when partnerships were just beginning to develop. This included the St. Columba's Holy Moment of the Day, with Murray looking as if he had just seen an act of God after taking a smart catch high to his left at mid-wicket. Other notable moments included some heart-in-mouth and ball-on-floor juggling from Caswell and O'Toole respectively off the bowling of Hall. Despite some surprising lower order cameos which took Ampthill to 191-8 off their 50 overs, St Albans were still confident in their ability to chase it down.

And confident they should have been, as Adil Sharif had clearly had his Weetabix that morning, putting on a clinical batting display in an innings of 118* and secure a million fantasy cricket points. It is rare for an innings to revolve almost entirely around one batsman, but this was very much the case as Sharif ruthlessly punished one bad ball after another. Howeson (34*) sensibly played second fiddle to Sharif after West padded back a straight one and enjoyed a long period of subsequent wallowing on the sidelines. Sharif played a serious of glorious strokes, including a lofted extra cover drive to reach his 50. One dropped chance was his only lifeline and he made Ampthill pay the price as he cruised his way to a maiden St Albans hundred and a 9 wicket victory for the Saints with almost 20 overs to spare.

Ampthill Town II Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 16w 2b 11lb 
for 8 wickets
30
191 (50.0 overs)		     
C Hawkins b  S White 10
S Morral ct  Caswell b S Kumar 39
S Ali Khan ct  R O'Toole b S Kumar 8
D Bennett ct  Caswell b Murphy 31
D Massa ct  Murray b A Murphy 21
L Archer ct  Murphy b J Hall 20
B Parsons ct  Caswell b J Hall 3
D Draycott b  S White 7
D Ballinger Not Out  7
R Blunt Not Out  15
N Welton  

St Albans Cricket Club 2XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Billy May10.004900.004.90
Simon White10.0226213.002.60
Jonny Hall10.0130215.003.00
Sammy Kumar10.0034217.003.40
Adam Murphy10.0039219.503.90

St Albans Cricket Club 2XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
25w  
for 1 wickets
25
193		        
Adil Sharif Not Out  118 91 22 129.67
Zach West lbw  D Bennett 18 29 2 62.07
Matt Howeson Not Out  34 50 4 68.00
Jonny Hall  
James Caswell   3
Richard O'Toole   1
Stuart Murray   1
Billy May  
Adam Murphy   1
Simon White  
Sammy Kumar  

Ampthill Town II Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
N Welton5.003200.006.40
D Bellinger7.002300.003.29
D Bennett4.0027127.006.75
R Blunt4.012300.005.75
S Ali Khan3.001400.004.67
D Draycott4.004100.0010.25
D Massa3.202200.006.60

  • Umpire :
    Macca
  • Scorer :