Scorecard

Holtwhites-Trinibis CC 3rd XI Saturday v St Albans Cricket Club 5XI on Sat 06 Jun 2026 at 13:00
St Albans Cricket Club Lost by 8 wickets

Match report Jesus Christ, I hate cricket.

After hearing almost every other game in the county had been rained out, the mighty St Albans 5XI saw an opportunity: do everything we can to play our game to secure some invaluable points at the top end of the table. Did we consider that maybe the fact that every other game had been rained off might just hint that there was a reason we shouldn’t play? Don’t be stupid. Thus, we journeyed over to Enfield to take on table-toppers Holtwhite Trinibis, accompanied by the heroic Freya Witty, who very kindly offered to score the entire game for us. What a clubwoman.

We batted first: injured skipper Imran ‘Immy’ Ahmed saw fit to open with the combined might of Praveen Kumar and Vishwanath ‘Vish’ Sirwar, and so the boys got to work. A mere 9 balls after Praveen informed the rest of the team that he “had never been out LBW in his life,” Praveen found himself ironically trapped LBW on 8, making way for Mostufa Alahi to take up arms. Vish and Mostufa batted sensibly, dispatching the bad balls when they came and holding down the fort admirably. Both lads would eventually see themselves run out in an effort to increase the run rate, seeing Vish depart on 25 and Mostufa on 22.

Up and coming youngster Daniel Leal approached, joined by Nasibullah ‘Maroof’ Maroofkhel. Maroof batted conservatively, facilitating some sharp running between the wickets and seeing a lot of excellent shots choked out by some good fielding in testing weather conditions. Leal was the pick of our batting lineup: he saw himself in safely to start with, then opened up and began scoring fluently, testing the boundary markers with alarming regularity and amassing our top score of 28, before he found himself departing thanks to an LBW call. Maroof would join him soon after, stumped on 6, a lot of us spectating and murmuring “yeah he was about four feet outside his crease there.”

Ungy ‘Promise’ Jones strode up to the crease, having begged to face the slow, loopy bowler, insisting that he’d smash the living daylights out of the bowling. Walsh Senior nodded approvingly, wishing him well as Promise took up arms. Thirty seconds later, Promise found himself sat back next to Walsh Senior, claiming that “sometimes you get a good one.” Immy and Adam Khel were out next: our injured captain played a fluent innings, going with aggression, while Khel was unfortunate to receive a golden duck for his troubles. Nadeem ‘Nads’ Arif joined our skipper, and echoed his predecessors by blocking the first few before opening up. Immy eventually fell, departing on 16, allowing the uncharacteristically in-form Ciarán Walsh to glide out to the crease.

Now, by this stage it had been raining lightly but irritatingly consistently for the last two hours: this resulted in the pitch becoming something of a minefield, with the ball barely leaving the ground for most deliveries, while the occasional one would pop up out of nowhere to keep us guessing. Tricky conditions and being cold and wet weren’t helping our moods, but Nads and Walsh batted well overall. Nads kept his trademark aggressive intent, at one point booming a massive 6 into some poor man’s back garden, while Walsh did his best to put another hole through the Holtwhite sight screens. He smacked two identical 4s back over the bowler’s head, nicked off for a streaky single, then found himself clean bowled having misjudged a ball that, as mentioned, barely left the deck. James Witty joined Nads to see out the innings, scoring 2*, before Nads found himself bowled as well, ending on 20.

At tea, we found ourselves with a total of 170 to defend. A respectable total, with plenty of bowling in our locker to make a proper game of it. Unfortunately, the rain was making itself known all the more by this stage. By the time we walked out to bowl, it was tricky to even see properly through the sheets of rain, but we soldiered on and opened up with Witty and Khel.

Both lads did a fine job of coping with the adverse weather conditions, keeping their bowling disciplined and keeping the destructive opening bat to a minimum. Witty found the breakthrough, a solid catch from Immy at slip with an ironically ‘slip-pery’ ball dispatching an opener for 29. Witty followed this up with a clean bowled wicket on the incoming number 3 in the very same over, reminding us that despite being cold and wet and miserable and with Walsh telling everyone he passed between overs that “cricket’s s***”, there was still very much a game to be played here.

Several drops in the field caused frustration at times, but, as mentioned, the ball was essentially made of water and red dye by this point: even our bowlers, despite using a towel to dry it off between deliveries, had trouble gripping the bloody thing, hampering our bowling ability by a fair bit. However, this is by no means an excuse: the remaining opener and the number 4 were in fine touch and playing booming shots, chipping away at our total bit by bit. Nads and Walsh came on to offer a change of pace, but were unable to find the breakthrough we sorely needed. Promise and Leal were next up, but again, the bats were swinging for the rafters with no sign of slowing down. Promise did an excellent job of slowing the run rate down, retiring after 4 overs but definitely playing a key role in eking out the game by restricting the batters in their bigger shots.

We closed out the attack with Vish and a reintroduced Khel: both lads bowled admirably, but the total just wasn’t there. Holtwhites flew past the required total in the 29th over, signalling a defeat for the mighty Saints.

A hard day at the office, but one with a lot of silver linings to take into the next game. Our batting was tempered with flecks of aggression, and we kept our cool in the face of big hitters and adverse weather conditions. Our fielding was overall good, but our catches left something to be desired, the old adage “catches win matches” ringing in our ears all the way back up the M25. That said, it’s significantly harder trying to catch a ball that looks like it’s made out of the Pacific Ocean, so we’ll look the other way for now. Overall, a game played in good spirits (bar Walsh who now hates the sport), and a lot of positives to take into our next game.

St Albans Cricket Club 5XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 11w 17b 4lb 
for 10 wickets
34
170		        
Praveen Kumar lbw J Patel 8 9 1 88.89
Vishwa Sirwar run out  (D Wilkes-Green) 25 39 2 64.10
Mostufa Fazle Alahi run out  (G Waller) 22 43 4 51.16
Daniel Leal lbw J Yelland 28 51 2 54.90
Nasibullah Maroofkhel st V Kansara b D McDonald 6 29 1 20.69
Ungy Jones b D Wilkes-Green 0 2 0
Imran Ahmed ct S Shah b A Popat 16 15 3 106.67 1
Adam Khel ct A Popat b J Yelland 0 1 0
Nadeem Arif b J Yelland 20 31 2 1 64.52
Ciarán Walsh b J Yelland 9 10 2 90.0
James Witty Not Out  2 7 28.57

Holtwhites-Trinibis CC 3rd XI Saturday Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Josh Patel8.0332132.004.00
Max Waller3.011200.004.00
Shiraz Shah2.001100.005.50
Darren Wilkes-Green8.0218118.002.25
Dylan McDonald8.0029129.003.63
Jonathan Yelland6.102847.004.54
Arjun Popat4.0019119.004.75

Holtwhites-Trinibis CC 3rd XI Saturday Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 7w 2lb 
for 2 wickets
10
173 (29.3 overs)		     
Shiraz Shah Not Out  63 83 10 75.90
Max Waller ct I Ahmed b J Witty 29 38 5 76.32
Nikesh Patel b J Witty 0 2 0
Tyrone Reis Not Out  71 55 10 2 129.09
Guy Waller  
Dylan McDonald  
Vijay Kansara  
Josh Patel  
Jonathan Yelland  
Darren Wilkes-Green  
Arjun Popat  

St Albans Cricket Club 5XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
James Witty8.0127213.503.38
Adam Khel6.304400.006.77
Nadeem Arif5.002500.005.00
Ciarán Walsh2.001600.008.00
Ungy Jones4.001100.002.75
Daniel Leal1.001700.0017.00
Vishwa Sirwar3.003100.0010.33