Mill Hill Village maintain 100% win record

Mill Hill Village 1st XI maintained their perfect start to the 2011 season in the Herts League, securing a comfortable victory over Radlett 5th XI.

With regular skipper Dave Overton resting a swollen knee, stand in skipper Phil Smith led an unchanged team into the match. Radlett won the toss and elected to bat first.

The visitors were soon struggling against threatening bowling from openers Saahil Mehra and James Cook, who picked up two early wickets each to reduce Radlett to 29-4.

An experienced Radlett middle order settled things down and began to re-build. However, a very tidy spell from Majid Asif meant that the runs were only coming from one end. Majid conceded just 3 runs in the first seven overs he bowled. Sanket Shah's leg spin always looked threatening at the other end but there was generally a loose ball to pick off each over.

As so often happens, when the troublesome partnership was broken, other wickets followed and Radlett lost 5 wickets for just 24 runs as they slumped to 98-9. Majid picking up 3 wickets as just reward for his control and Sanket picking up two.

Numbers 10 & 11 batted better than their position in the order suggested they might. They chanced their arm and began to find the boundary with regularity. The opening bowlers were brought back on to tidy up the tail and duly obliged. James Cook picked up the last wicket to finish with impressive figures of 3-17 from 9.4 overs.

The low total of 134 was never likely to prove much of a problem for the home side to chase and despite losing both openers early, the target was overhauled in just the 20th over. Agressive hitting from Marcus Cara (63) and some classical shots from Danny Potter (52) soon had the Radlett heads going down. The visitors fielding efforts all but disintegrated as some half chances went down. Marcus and Danny finished the job in style, maintaining their good form and impressive averages at this early stage of the season. A comfortable 8 wicket win for the Village who remain joint top of Division 10, with two other unbeaten sides.