Scorecard

Hertford CC 4th XI v St Albans Cricket Club 5XI on Sat 01 Aug 2026 at 13:00
St Albans Cricket Club Won by 3 wickets

Match report The 5s travelled to the parched second pitch at Hertford – it looked small. The humanoid runs machine on loan from Skynet, Cyberdine Systems Model Zac Johnson, carefully scoped the ground, assessed its dimensions, confirmed it was one which normally hosted junior fixtures and monotonally uttered “short boundary; runs here.”

The oppo skipper bemoaned the paucity of his resources; “a number of our players are at the bloody Hundred.” A glance at their dugout confirmed that a handful of their replacements still had cobwebs on and in their kit bags, their anxious faces struggling to conceal the concern about tomorrow morning’s inevitable aches and pains.

Skipper Immy lost the toss with the oppo electing to bat. James Witty and, making his 5s debut, Vivek Deswal, opened the bowling. Both bowled with excellent control and variety. James got the wicket of their dangerman in the first over – Matt Shadwick taking a clean leg side snaffle behind the stumps. Vivek picked up two wickets in his spell, finishing with glorious figures of 6-3-4-2. James took two more wickets, the final one due to a superb catch on the deep square leg boundary by Vivek. The oppo were 39-5 at early drinks: with 15 overs gone, the 5s were ecstatic.

The batters dug in and despite their efforts, first change bowlers Adam Khel and Vish Sirwar were unable to dislodge them. A 55-run partnership was finally ended by Ubed Talha, Shads taking a sharp under-edge catch at the wicket. Ubed struck four overs later, bowling the oppo’s top-scorer for 34. This season’s top wicket-taker Nadeem Arif bowled a tight three overs at the other end and earned a fourth when he shamefully begged Immy for another over, giving it the whole “do you know who I am?” spiel. Immy’s authority for the rest of his tenure, evaporated in an instant.

Ubed took his third and final wicket to finish with the day’s best bowling figures of 8-3-19-3. Maroof mopped up the tail with two wickets, the first taken by a diving humanoid in the deep. The final wicket was the most satisfying since it dismissed the oppo’s batter who was seemingly the Angriest Man in Hertfordshire on Saturday afternoon and proved that he had never listened to his parents in the 70s when they advised, “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. He dismissed the 5s bog-standard celebrations upon taking the final wicket of the innings with a “it’s not like you’ve won the World Cup.” None of us thought we had.

The oppo’s final score of 130 reflected a committed team effort in the field, superb goalkeeping by Shads behind the stumps and some outstanding efforts by the bowlers. With no real demons in the pitch, the chase should be straightforward, but the 5s had struggled chasing smaller targets already this season; the (successfully chased, for the loss of 8 wickets) 93 needed at Old Owens in June shouting “REMEMBER ME!” at the openers as they padded up.

Shads and the humanoid were tasked with setting the tone and chasing down the moderate total, which they did watchfully and with great control. Shads led the way hitting 24 off 25 balls (20 of which came from boundaries) but a mix-up in the calling in the 9th over left both batters halfway down the track. Shads sacrificing himself by running to the danger end in a selfless effort to avoid the ignominious sight of both batters squabbling over who should be out as the oppo celebrate.

Nads, Daniel Leal and Immy followed soon after leaving the 5s 68-3 after 19 overs. 130 was feeling a little distant and what we needed was some stodge, a bit of bread-and-butter pudding, Jack Leach, someone to stand at the other end. James strode to the crease and spent the next 12 overs in the non-striker’s armchair enjoying the humanoid conduct an innings of great maturity. He took the game away from the oppo in a measured chase ensuring the run rate never crept much over 3 runs per over. Bad balls went to the boundary; straight ones went back to the bowler.

At the second drinks break, 26 more runs were needed for victory. Immy was getting a bit twitchy and his message of “get on with it” was translated by the humanoid into two fours and a massive six into the trees on the legside boundary. With just 16 more runs required, the pull shot which had proven so profitable in the previous over terminated the humanoid’s afternoon; clean bowled for a terrific 72 and the end of the second 55-run partnership of the match. Hasta la vista, baby! The ovation had barely died down when James was BBQd the next ball - run out attempting to run a two. 9 required with 4 wickets in hand – no problemo!

Maroof followed up a boundary with a sky-er which the mid-off fielder, all arms and legs flailing, managed to grass. With just two runs needed, we had problemos. Ubed was dismissed which sent the onlooking 5s players into panic mode - defeat cannot be possible! The cortisol was racing when the opportunity to run byes was turned down just a few balls later. After 10 consecutive dots – stress levels not reducing! - Adam Khel whipped a four through square leg for a well-deserved win which keeps the 5s in the promotion race, tucked in nicely behind the top 3. The final 5 fixtures of the season include matches against all of those top 3 teams.

Fines:
• Vivek for absolutely disgusting debut bowling figures.
• Nadders for his repeated reminders about how many wickets he’s taken this season.
• Immy for giving a begging Nadders an extra over.
• Shads for wearing his wicket-keeping pads underneath his trousers.
• Zac for running out Shads.
• Shads for being far too polite and graciously running to the danger end, taking the fall in the run out schemozzle.
• Zac for foolishly giving his wicket away with the game almost won and for allowing self-doubt to infect the 5s squad.
• James for his second consecutive innings of stodge and a strike rate of 16.22.
• Maroof for turning a definite 2 into a single and sending James back to the danger end when he was three-quarters of the way down the track.
• Maroof for not winning the match by running two byes when he had the opportunity to do so.


Huge thanks to Freya Witty for giving up her Saturday and scoring both innings, this time on Play-Cricket rather than in her technicolour scorebook.

by James Witty

Hertford CC 4th XI Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 17w 6b 10lb 
for 10 wickets
35
130 (38.1 overs)		     
Max Prasad ct  M Shadwick b J Witty 0 5 0
Stephen McGovern ct  I Ahmed b V Deswal 0 9 0
Paul Williams b  U Talha 34 94 7 36.17
Finley Gilmartin b  V Deswal 4 17 1 23.53
Eric Riddle lbw  J Witty 8 11 2 72.73
James Buse ct  V Deswal b J Witty 1 5 20.0
Andre Rideout ct  M Shadwick b U Talha 25 42 5 59.52
Sam Davies b  U Talha 3 18 16.67
Lucas Davies ct  Z Johnson b N Maroofkhel 2 5 40.0
Jack Buse b  N Maroofkhel 6 9 1 66.67
Julian Cordani Not Out  12 16 1 75.00

St Albans Cricket Club 5XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
James Witty8.022237.332.75
Vivek Deswal6.03422.000.67
Vishwa Sirwar5.012400.004.80
Adam Khel5.012400.004.80
Ubed Talha8.031936.332.37
Nadeem Arif4.011100.002.75
Nasibullah Maroofkhel2.101025.004.62

St Albans Cricket Club 5XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 6w 3b  
for 7 wickets
12
133		        
Matt Shadwick run out  (S Davies) 24 25 5 96.00 2
Zac (Isaac) Johnson b  J Buse 72 103 11 1 69.90 1
Nadeem Arif b  J Buse 1 7 14.29
Daniel Leal ct  S Davies b L Davies 0 13 0
Imran Ahmed b  A Rideout 5 7 1 71.43 1
James Witty run out  (S Davies) 6 37 1 16.22
Nasibullah Maroofkhel Not Out  9 12 1 75.00
Ubed Talha ct  F Gilmartin b L Davies 0 2 0
Adam Khel Not Out  4 6 1 66.67
Vishwa Sirwar  
Vivek Deswal   1

Hertford CC 4th XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
James Buse7.0024124.003.43
Finley Gilmartin8.022600.003.25
Lucas Davies7.5125212.503.19
Andre Rideout5.0027127.005.40
Jack Buse4.0021121.005.25
Julian Cordani2.00700.003.50
Max Prasad1.01000.000.00