Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club 4XI v Bamville on Sat 18 May 2024 at 13:00
St Albans Cricket Club Lost by 21 runs

Match report A week later than the rest of the club the 4th XI returned to their spiritual home, the SLCG, to kick off their 2024 league season. Facing the relegated team from the previous year, Bamville, the 4th XI had assembled a strong squad of players, including faces familiar with playing for 2nd and 3rd teams over the years.
With Skipper A. Saunders declaring that “You’d be silly not to bowl first here” before the toss it came as quite the surprise to the team when he lost the toss and St Albans were invited to take the field first. An omen towards Bamville’s desire to get runs on the board early.

Berry and Davey were entrusted with taking the new ball, with the former declaring he’d had a couple of nets and that he’d probably be ok to bowl. Quite quickly in his first over questions were being raised as to the validity of this, keeper Melling being kept busy down the leg side. However, after the first few ball jitters Berry found his mark and began to produce a delightful display of swinging bowling at a good pace. It would be his opening partner who found the breakthrough, in his first over, producing a full toss that was so slow the opener was caught playing a shot considerably earlier than needed. At the other end Berry continued his strong spell, and found the wicket of the number 3 batsman, sending his leg stump cartwheeling.
The remaining opener and number 4 batsman would prove the key to the Bamville innings, taking a liking to Davey’s bowling and proceeding to attempt to smash every ball out of the park. Once the cow corner hoiks and off side smears were cut off the openers continued a strong spell, and were unlucky not to pick up any further wickets. Berry finishing with figures of 6-0-26-1 and Davey 5-0-30-1. The change of bowling bought Walker and Telkman to the crease, who matched each other’s ability to settle into tidy line and lengths. During this time the Bamville number 4 would commit running suicide, running himself out attempting a quick single to short fine leg, a wicket that St Albans desperately needed.

The remaining opener and new to the crease number 5 set about accumulating runs from the tidy St Albans bowling pair, and were able to pick off the bad ball when it came. Walker would finally get his deserved wicket shortly after drinks, the opening batsman finally holing out for 44. Telkman would end his full spell wicketless, with figures of 8-0-33-0, with Walker finishing on 8-0-32-1. The game was finely balanced approaching the last 15 overs.

Replacing the medium pacers was the first introduction of spin, with Ahmed and Saunders coming on to bowl. Both started well, but unfortunately the agricultural style of the Bamville batsman meant runs flowed. Ahmed would pick up the important wicket of the set batsman for 52, a fine ball generating a LBW, which St Albans hoped would spark a collapse. However, the next batsmen took their chances and began to score boundaries consistently to nudge the score towards 200. Saunders would pick up a wicket late into his spell, with Ahmed also claiming a second, both caught unsurprisingly. Wynne-Griffith and Kavathkar would come on for the final overs, with the former on 4th XI debut picking up a wicket in his second over.

The Bamville innings ending on 220, probably 30 runs ahead of where they should have been, a few dropped catches helping them along the way and a few missfields leading to runs that weren’t deserved.

Leading the St Albans response were the opening pair of Nisar and Ahmed, who were facing up to some strong opening bowler, in particular a left armer who was generating some movement through the air. This bowler was able to build the pressure on the pair, leading to his partner bowling Nisar for 5, attempting to ease the pressure off of the perceived weaker bowler. At the other end Ahmed continued to accumulate well and played some flowing shots on his way to another score for the 4s, ending on 39. Replacing Nisar was Wynne-Griffith, off the back of a good showing for the 5s, however he was unfortunately bowled in a similar way to Nisar only 3 balls into his innings. I’m fairly sure DWG will be back scoring runs next week.
Entering the fray for St Albans was Khan, who along with Ahmed proceeded to see off the end of the opening bowlers and start to score runs freely against the first change bowlers. Khan would hit some lovely shots on his way to 41, including a huge six. A pair of really great innings, which unfortunately ended shortly after drinks, when Ahmed holed out to the man in the deep. St Albans needing to keep wickets in tact whilst also maintaining a strong run rate.

Replacing Ahmed was Melling, who began to look to rotate the strike to keep Khan in the game, he played a number of delightful drives to pick off singles where possible. The games turning point then came as Khan was out caught in the 40s, ending an innings that the remaining St Albans players had hoped would take them over the line. Khatavkar replaced Khan at the crease and along with Melling tried to keep the scoring flowing, however runs were harder to come by in this period and some strong Bamville bowling meant that the run rate was stifled well below where it needed to be. Melling would be out bowled looking to increase the rate, and Khatavkar would be run out, the pair contributing a good partnership of 25 to hold the middle of the innings together.

With a run rate required of roughly 8 an over lower order biffers Berry and Davey entered the fray. Looking to score freely with some expansive shots and take the game as deep as possible. This started well, Berry able to find the boundary nicely and Davey adding multiple boundaries in his first couple of overs to give the onlooking crowd hope. However, it was not to last, Berry out bowled looking to smash the returning opener out of St Albans. Walker replaced Berry and quickly found his mark, cutting a fabulous shot to the boundary, but the long outfield would deny him any further boundaries.

With only a few overs left the Bamville fielders had dropped back onto the boundaries to restrict run scoring and this stifled Davey and Walker’s ability to keep up with the required rate. The St Albans innings ending with a couple of run outs and a Walker being bowled, 30 runs short of the total required, and Davey stranded on 20 not out.

A really good game of cricket, that St Albans would have come out on top of if they’d fielded slightly better, taken their chances and restricted the Bamville run rate more in the final 10 overs. The batting innings had some real strong points, with Khan and Ahmed showing their ability and taking the run chase close.

Bamville Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
10w 8b 7lb 
for 8 wickets
25
221 (40.0 overs)		     
Anirudha Kubair  
Amir Kureshi Not Out  0
Shahzad Ramzan  
Orangzaib Shaikh  
Shahzad Ahmad  
Awais Paul  
Emaad Ahmad  
Vijay Lutra  
Kashif Farooq  
Amaan Akhtar  
Waqar Hussain  

St Albans Cricket Club 4XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Lucas Berry6.0126126.004.33
Sam Davey5.0030130.006.00
Jamie Telkman8.003300.004.13
Andrew Walker8.0232216.004.00
Imran Ahmed5.0024212.004.80
Andy Saunders4.0028128.007.00
David Wynne-Griffith2.001500.007.50
Prath Khatavkar2.001700.008.50

St Albans Cricket Club 4XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 14w 3b 5lb 
for 10 wickets
25
193		        
Nauman Nisar b  E Ahmad 5 16 1 31.25
Imran Ahmed ct  Unsure b V Lutra 39 62 7 62.90
David Wynne-Griffith b  E Ahmad 0 3 0
Najib Khan ct  A Paul b S Ramzan 41 33 6 1 124.24
Peter Melling b  O Shaikh 17 34 1 50.0
Prath Khatavkar run out  (Unsure) 16 37 1 43.24
Lucas Berry b  A Akhtar 10 13 1 76.92
Sam Davey Not Out  26 20 4 130.0
Andrew Walker b  E Ahmad 10 12 1 83.33
Jamie Telkman run out  (Unsure) 4 4 1 100
Andy Saunders run out  (Unsure) 0

Bamville Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Amaan Akhtar7.3318118.002.40
Emaad Ahmad7.0140313.335.71
Vijay Lutra8.0136136.004.50
Shahzad Ramzan8.0148148.006.00
Anirudha Kubair4.002000.005.00
Orangzaib Shaikh4.0023123.005.75