Scorecard

Haddenham CC v St Albans Cricket Club 6XI on Sat 14 Jun 2025 at 1pm
St Albans Cricket Club Lost lost by 153 runs

Match report Another week of great availability led to the decision to field a 6th XI, unfortunately pitch availability makes it challenging to secure away fixtures but it was eventually managed on Thursday afternoon against a small, 1 team club in the depths of Buckinghamshire. Originally agreed to be a mixture of colts, ladies and older player - much like ourselves - the fixture promised to be nicely balanced. The usual scramble for players ensued but we managed to get to 9 by Saturday morning with the oppo being in a similar position. A lengthy drive to the venue had the usual comments of "where the hell are we going?" etc etc but on arrival we were met with a pleasant setting in a small village with the bar open much to Dan O'Toole's delight! It turns out that this was as about as good as it was going to get. Walking out for the toss their skipper welcomed me with "we might be a bit stronger than I had thought, we've had to pull in some other players after a couple of dropouts", this coupled with "sorry - it is a used wicket so the bounce might be a bit variable" could have been put down to gamesmanship but sadly not. Deciding to field first we opened up with John Shaw and Tom Coulling - both bowlers starting well with good pace and John was rewarded in his second over cleaning up one of the openers. With a number of gaps in the field the run rate was challenging to control and the batsmen set about punishing anything loose. A change in bowling brought in Daniel Leal and Jamie Coffer who slowed the run rate significantly with excellent line and length, Daniel in particular being rewarded with 2 wickets proving the point that if you miss I hit. Excellent spells of 6 overs each for 17 and 19 respectively (despite what their scoring maintained in Play Cricket!). A change of attack brought in our spin duo of Kara Virjender and Fin McNab who both brought some excellent control against 2 well set batters - Kara in particular bowling with excellent variation, drawing some well deserved praise from the batters. With the last 5 overs to go the opening pair of Shaw and Coulling returned but were unable to stem the runs as the batsmen continued to find the gaps in the field and capitalise on the very short boundary on one side. A final over cameo from the returning Dan O'Toole unfortunately didn't stem the flow of runs and the opposition ended setting a rather daunting target of 241.

Opening the batting for our reply were Dan O'Toole and George Thomas, both returning to the game after lengthy lay offs - Dan feeling it would help his game by turning up hungover and seemed be pretty comfortable for the first 6 balls. George however played all around a straight one and was back in the hutch after 2 balls - much chuntering ensued about cricket being a stupid game, 2 hours of driving and standing around for 35 overs! Unfortunately Dan followed George a few balls later again missing a straight one. This seemed to be story of the innings, wickets falling all too regularly. There were a few delays in the proceedings with the skipper playing a couple of nice shots but was still being hampered by a broken toe. Tom Coulling also batted very well with some very elegant and beautifully timed strokes but sadly with wickets falling at regular intervals there was an inevitability to the outcome with Daniel Leal and Fin McNab providing the final resistance with the former batting nicely for a well made 14 before Dan gave him out LBW as the coup de grâce to innings.

All in all it was a shame that the 2 sides were so miss-matched but everyone tried their best and the game was played in good spirit. Unfortunately their scorer struggled with identifying who was bowling and batting so the stats are not very accurate.

St Albans Cricket Club 6XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 8 wickets
0
88		        
A.N. Other Bowled  6 9 1 66.67
George Thomas Bowled  0 2 0
Jamie Coffer Bowled  4 4 1 100
Hugo Thomas ct wt 27 24 5 1 112.50
John Shaw Caught  2 7 28.57
Kara Vijender ct wt 2 8 25.00
Thomas Coulling Caught  23 21 3 109.52
Daniel Leal Lbw  14 17 2 82.35
Fin McNab Not Out  7 22 1 31.82
A.N. Other  
A.N. Other  

Haddenham CC Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Haddenham CC Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 22w 6b 3lb 
for 5 wickets
32
241 (35.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

St Albans Cricket Club 6XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
John Shaw7.0062162.008.86
Thomas Coulling7.005300.007.57
Daniel Leal5.011728.503.40
Jamie Coffer4.011900.004.75
Kara Vijender6.0032132.005.33
Fin McNab5.003900.007.80
A.N. Other1.001000.0010.00