Scorecard

St Albans Cricket Club 1XI v Lutonian CC Saturday 1st XI on Sat 31 May 2025 at 12:00
St Albans Cricket Club Won by 8 wickets

Match report After two away games in a row, the 1st XI returned to Clarence Park to face Lutonian CC on Saturday, looking to build on an impressive start and make it 4 wins from 4.

It very quickly became apparent that the day would be a battle between two very different cricketing philosophies. St Albans arrived early and began a structured and high-quality warm-up, looking the part in our matching AK Sports training kit. On the other hand, Lutonian strolled onto the park a while later, choosing not to conduct a warm-up and instead opting for a group cigarette and a communal non-alcoholic blue VK (yes, they do apparently exist). Although worth mentioning they too donned their very own AK sports kit.

The surface looked like another belter as we have quickly become accustomed to at CP and, with the sun out, the Saints batters were keen to get their pads on and have a bat. Nevertheless, skipper Regan voiced his intention to bowl first. An interesting thought given that the last captain to win the toss and bowl at Clarence conceded 330 in just 45 overs to the Sunday 1s, including a 50 partnership between openers Dan Baylis and Jacob Winfield. The coin therefore went up with the fate inevitable, Saints were bowling.

Facing up to an opening partnership of Jones and Badsy, the Lutonian openers made their intentions clear early, finding the boundary almost immediately. Meanwhile, Badshead also found the boundary with his uncharacteristic wide deliveries. However, a positive and aggressive start soon caught up with Lutonian, first Badsy claimed the wicket of one opener, bowling him with a skilful variation, the straight one. Soon after, Will Jones took his -checks notes - second wicket of the season as a skied pull shot was expertly taken by a diving Will Bancroft, standing in as wicketkeeper in the simultaneous absence of every other keeping option. The same combination of Jones and Bancroft then struck again, this time with a more traditional caught behind, followed by Dan Baylis also finding the edge, leaving Lutonian reeling at 40-4.

Unfortunately, a combination of some more sensible batting than we had seen so far, along with some admittedly below par bowling from an overconfident St Albans, meant Lutonian were able to rebuild and club their way towards a respectable score. After an extended wicketless period, golden-arm Hammer once again made a vital breakthrough and got Saints foot back in the door. Then came another couple of wickets from Hammer, including an impressive no handed catch from Ben Adshead at long-on who brought down the ball expertly with his chest and then, rather than choosing to volley it back, collected the ball with his elbows. Perhaps this change of approach might bring a change of fortunes to Ben’s catching? Mulvaney also got in on the act, notably a smart caught and bowled to remove their skipper on 89, as Saints rattled through their lower order to peg Lutonian back to a slightly below par score of 239.

In reply, the so far successful opening partnership of Sims and Regan Jr made their way straight over the astro and to the middle, accompanied by a chorus of terrible chat from an extremely chirpy Lutonian fielding side; Imagine an u12 game of children who had just been introduced to sledging, whose parents had given them far too many sweets and energy drinks. However, the vocal fielders soon became very quiet as Regan Jr found the boundary with an array of expertly played shots. Saints made another great start with the bat, as has been the case for the majority of the season, with Sims and Regan putting on 50-0 and then soon 100-0, some measured batting building a great foundation to what was looking like a well-paced chase.

Unfortunately, some life was struck into a dejected Lutonian side when Jamie swept into the hands of square leg. Sims, now joined by the senior of the Regan brothers, then got bogged down and struggled to find the boundary so, keen as not to get bored by his own batting, began to sledge the opposition instead. An interesting approach that was not taken too kindly by the Lutonian players. A slog sweep for 4 from the verbalist suggested this approach had worked but the very next ball it was Sims with egg on his face and Awais Khan with the last laugh, Sims bowled for a very slow 42. Fantastic send off by the way good Sir, 1-0.

With the score now 142-2, It was up to last week’s heroes of Joe and Will Jones to take Saints home, and take Saints home they did. Regan, a man very much in form, put the Lutonian bowlers to the sword with some excellent batting. A quality knock of 76* from the captain, well accompanied by Will Jones with 35* meant that Saint Albans cruised home with 3 overs to spare to secure yet another 30 points. Thoughts do go out to Tom McCormick whose continued case of pad rash may soon be considered terminal, although I’m sure the Oldham result in the play-off final will make those chafed legs feel slightly better.

4 from 4 for the 1s as they remain joint top of Division 1 in their search for promotion back to the Championship.

The full scorecard can be found here

(Match Report by George Sims)

St Albans Cricket Club 1XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 10w 5b 3lb 
for 2 wickets
19
243		        
Jamie Regan ct K Khan b A Khan 71 78 13 91.03
George Sims b A Khan 42 86 5 48.84 1
Joe Regan Not Out  76 73 9 104.11
Will Jones Not Out  35 50 4 70.0
Tom McCormick   1
Adam Hounslow  
Max Capaldi  
Will Bancroft   3 1
Joshua Mulvaney   1
Dan Baylis  
Ben Adshead   1

Lutonian CC Saturday 1st XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Khizer Manzoor6.002800.004.67
Malik Sadiq10.003300.003.30
Kashif Khan2.002500.0012.50
Awais Khan10.0135217.503.50
Shamas Khan7.304200.005.60
Hamzah Khan10.005000.005.00
Mohammed Essa2.002200.0011.00

Lutonian CC Saturday 1st XI Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
24w 10lb 
for 10 wickets
34
239 (49.2 overs)		     
Mohammed Essa b B Adshead 9 7 2 128.57
Asad Rasheed ct W Bancroft b W Jones 0 6 0
Muhammad Adeel ct W Bancroft b W Jones 6 12 50.0
Awais Khan ct T McCormick b A Hounslow 30 54 5 55.56
Hamzah Khan ct W Bancroft b D Baylis 1 15 6.67
Zahid Ali Khan ct J Mulvaney b J Mulvaney 89 102 8 87.25
Malik Sadiq ct B Adshead b A Hounslow 32 53 4 60.38
Harmain Asif ct G Sims b A Hounslow 7 5 1 140.0
Kashif Khan Not Out  13 26 50.0
Shamas Khan st W Bancroft b J Mulvaney 10 10 1 100
Khizer Manzoor b D Baylis 8 5 1 160.0

St Albans Cricket Club 1XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Will Jones8.021125.501.38
Ben Adshead2.0024124.0012.00
Dan Baylis7.2027213.503.68
Joshua Mulvaney9.0049224.505.44
Adam Hounslow10.0142314.004.20
Tom McCormick3.002000.006.67
Max Capaldi10.005600.005.60