2's struggle across the line

We travelled up to Holwell, past Hitchin, in the surprising position of being top of a very close table. Last season, Ickleford beat us comfortably in the last game to put paid to faint hopes of promotion, but it was a very different Ickleford team which faced us on this occasion, with a mixture of youth and experience and not much in between! Ickleford won the toss and chose to bat on a hot sunny day, which was unfortunate for us as opening bowler Ali Javed was running 30 minutes late.

Ickleford openers Nick Webb and Kevin Shinner faced Shiva Subramanian and Murtuza Amin and made steady progress until the 9th over when debutant Duane Perera took a sharp catch at cover to dismiss Shinner for 11 (32/1). Murtuza then joined in in the following over, with number 3 Ian Cheeseman (0) unlucky to play onto his stumps (33/2). This brought captain Mark Howard to the crease and together with Webb they built a slow but solid partnership of 94 from 35 overs that took Ickleford to 127. Dave Knight finally broke the partnership having Howard (42) caught by Dave Flavell (127/3). This opened an end up and Murtuza then bowled Adam Ross (6) and Joe Drummond (0) (140/5). Nick Webb looked to push the score on and was finally run out for a brave 68 (157/6). Shiva Subramanian took 2 wickets in the final over with Ickleford finishing on 164 for 8 from 53 overs.

With Lee Crocker suffering from the previous night and morning scoping out his stag-do venue, Pete Jaffe was promoted to opener along with Lawrence Bird. Pete (4) unfortunately fell to his trademark slash to point off the hand grenades of Mark Howard to get the innings off to a less than flying start (4/1). Howard struck again shortly afterwards, with Kudzai Makopa (1) unable to resist the temptation of a pie and was caught at mid on (20/2). In spite of his suffering, Lee Crocker (21) scored freely and to take the score to 44 before being unfortunate to glove the ball behind. Zaf Basit joined Loz at the crease and the score progressed to 61 when Zaf (7) was bowled by Howard. Dave Flavell was next in and together with Loz looked to blunt the less than hostile bowling attack. With young spinner Daniel Barnes mixing up off and leg spin, Loz and Legs pushed on and looked untroubled at the crease until Loz (39) was bamboozled by a leggie and leant out of his crease to be stumped (84/5), leaving the Village halfway to the target but having lost half their wickets but with plenty of overs left. In spite of the captains advice to play himself in and wait for the inevitable loose balls, Shivakumar Subramanian (13) couldn't resist the tempting bowling and struck a few lusty blows before being caught at long on by Dan Barnes from the off spin of youngster James Redmond (102/6). Murtuza Amin (11) employed similar tactics to Shiv and fell to the same combination, again holing out at long on to leave the game hanging in the balance at 127/7. Flavell was lucky to be dropped at mid on by the opposing skipper Mark Howard, but together with Duane Perera (8*) knocked off the remaining runs to give us a valuable victory, getting to 50 whilst hitting the winning runs.

Credit is due to Ickleford, who despite fielding a weakened team, batted to a defendable total which could, and should, have been lower had any of several chances been held during the 3rd wicket partnership of 94. Nick Webb (68) batted most of the Ickleford innings, being hit in the heart by a vicious ball from Ali Javed, and bowled 10 overs. Murtuza Amin bowled 15 overs in two spells in the blazing sunshine during Ramadan, supported by Shiv, Legs and Ali.

Ickleford IIIs 11 points, Mill Hill Village IIs 30 points.