Following the heavy rain during the latter stages of the week, Saturday brought a glorious weather, HBCC won the toss and elected to put the visitors in to bat.

HBCC’s bowling was opened by Mark Stelfox & John Myers, Stuart Jones & Phil Cooper opened the batting from Crompark, the opening overs was largely a case of accurate bowling and watchful batting, which allied to a slow outfield saw the scoreboard moving at a slow rate.
After 5 economical overs from Myers, Chris Smith-Whicker was introduced from the airport end, Cooper was the first to go, bowled by Whicker-Smith for 9, Matt Roe followed the very next ball in the same manner. Dan Dickens took the attack to the HBCC well backed up by Jones who made 21 before being bowled by Stelfox in his final over, Dickens was well caught by Chris Dalby off Whicker-Smith for 27. Jack Mann hit a couple of nice 4s in a quickfire 9 before being smartly caught by Whicker-Smith off his own bowling. Venkatesh Iyer had replaced Stelfox and after taking a couple of overs to find his groove Venkatesh proved unplayable as his took 4 wickets for 3 runs in the second 4 overs of an 8 over spell that yielded 23 runs in total, Whicker-Smith finishing with an impressive 4-31 off 12 overs, Eoin Taylor claiming the final wicket aided by another Chris Dalby catch as Crompark were 89 all out.

Sunil Bhogulkar & Chris Dalby opened HBCC’s reply with the bat against the Crompark opening bowling of Dickens & Mann, as with the Crompark innings tight bowling and a slow outfield made for slow progress with the bat, Sunil was the first to go, bowled by Dickens, Frosdick followed to the same bowler shortly after for a duck to a ball that apparently did a bit of everything before it nonchalantly flicked a bail off on it’s way through, Greg McManus & Chris Dalby steadied the ship for a period and looked in good shape before Greg played back to Dave Robinson and was clean bowled for a promising 14, Dave Ward fell foul of some comedy calling and was run out for 0.
Stuart Jones entered the attack for Crompark and accounted for Chris Dalby, Chris Whicker-Smith and John Myers in quick succession, James Dalby was rallying for HBCC with 3x6 and with Stelfox the momentum looked to be swinging back HBCC’s way before the re-introduction of Dickens accounted for Dalby & Taylor and then Jones managed to find the edge of Venkatesh’s bat to see HBCC all out for 75, Jones taking an impressive 5-9, Dickens 4-20
Obviously, a disappointing chase after some decent work in the field, notably from Venks and Whicker with the ball and Greg & Wardy fielding wise, but some promise with the bat from Greg, and the Dalby brothers and we know everyone can contribute more with the bat. Nets are on Tuesday and we have a busy weekend of cricket to look forward to next week.

Well done to Crompark on a deserved win in a well contested, but good humoured game on a glorious afternoon.