‘Dropping’ Virus is Catching!

The 1st X1 played Cheshunt in our first home game of the season but narrowly missed out on completing back to back wins. Having been asked to bat first on what looked a good, if somewhat green deck the innings got off to a bad start with Alex Flett caught behind with the score on 4. Another of our new additions Jake Agar (16) was elevated up the order and took it to the bowling attack hitting some beautiful drives back past the bowler. Jake fell to a slower ball before Craig Lyte (22) was beaten by a good nut that came back into him after two away swingers. Richard Ellwood came and went without troubling Ewan leaving us at 55-4 in the 13th over.

Andrew Ferguson (18) arrived at the crease and offered valuable support to Tariq Mahmood (50) who continued his fine start to the season with another half century. Having made a mini recovery and now 132-5 we found ourselves in trouble again with two quick wickets and in real danger of not batting our overs. Enter Joe Collard (74no) and Raja Abrar (31) who reasoned attack was the best form of defence and put on a 79 run partnership with some exceptionally clean hitting from both. With the tail sticking around to support Joe we managed to post 248 off 49.2 overs.

Cheshunt started their innings in a very attacking fashion and with only one wicket on the board the score has raced to 98-1 off 20 overs. Saqib Mehmmod and Anthony Morris were introduced and managed to stem the flow somewhat but wickets eluded us through no help of our own with important catches going down regularly. Cheshunt seemed to be coasting to victory at 209-3 before Joe Collard (6-65) came back and took a Michelle in his second spell. Bowling stump to stump paid dividends for Poodle and the opposition were getting nervous at 211-7. A tight finish ensued but with their main man well set and our catching not improving Cheshunt won with 2.4 overs remaining.

The 1st X1 make their way to Dunstable this weekend.