What a difference a week makes as we started this years campaign in Division 9B in glorious sunshine. The toss was won and the opposition inserted as usual, to face the bowling attack of Ali Javed and Darshan Raval. Ali's winter net practice was clearly paying off as he generated a couple of sharp chances behind the stumps. Darshan's lack of nets also showed as he picked up a slight side strain early in his spell and had to crank down the pace. The score board crawled along, helped by Ali's first four overs being maidens, until the 8th over when Darshan struck, Tom Templeton caught by Sunny Raval for 5 (14/1). Darshan managed one more over before being replaced by Shash Seem. Shash continued to pressurise the batsmen with tight line and length which paid off with George Hunt (12) well caught by Pryank Patel at short fine leg (34/2, 16th over). More slow progress followed for another 8 overs until Shash got his second wicket with Russell Knights (17) playing on 59/3, 24 overs). Incoming bat Matt Hendy (1) came and went in the following over, bowled behind his legs by Sanket Shah's Ball of the Millenium - well he's been trying to do this all millenium (61/4). Wickets then fell quickly with Shash taking an excellent diving catch for Sanket's second wicket, Lee Crocker taking a straight forward catch off Pryank Patel and the Shash-Sanket combination striking again (85/7). Kings captain Tim Gould put up some resistance with Philip Ratcliff until the returning Ali Javed finally got the wicket he deserved, bowling Ratcliff for 16 (110/8). The resistance continued until the skipper got bored with Sanket trying to repeat his bowling behind the legs and took the last two wickets with his first two balls to leave Kings Langley on what seemed like a well below par 123 from 41.2 overs.

As tea wasn't ready, we turned straight around and Kings immediately struck, with Sunny Raval looking scratchy for 4 balls until he finally managed to get bat on ball and snick one to slip (0/1). Zaf Basit and Lee Crocker took the innings through to tea with Lee choosing which balls to hit and which to block (39/1 from 10 overs). Kath's wonderful tea was well received, with our batsmen clearly eating more than their fair share, and play resumed with Russell Knights trapping Zaf Basit LBW for 18 from the first ball after tea. Kudzai Makopa got the second duck of the day, bowled by Knight's second ball (39/3). Lee Crocker and Pete Jaffe set about rebuilding the innings until Pete (9) chipped a low one from Knights to midwicket (52/4). Flavell (6) followed, snicking one to the keeper (63/5). Darshan (6) then inexplicably ran himself out, clipping the ball to short fine leg and setting off for a suicidal run before being turned back by Crocker and failing to make his ground (72/6). Crocker finally fell caught at long on for a vital 35 (79/7). Shash Seem (1) was bowled taking a wild swipe across the line (82/8) to bring Sanket Shah and Ali Javed together at the crease. Sanket immediately tucked into the previously baffling bowling of Knights, taking 13 from his final over, and 8 from the first over of Harry Misselbrook, to move the score rapidly to 105. Sanket then put his sensible head on and together with Ali pushed, nudged and nurdled the ball around to take the score to 121 before pulling a steepling ball to square leg, who looked comfortable waiting for the catch before the crosswind and spin took the ball out of his grasp to allow the batsmen to take 2 vital runs to tie the scores. Sanket then played on with the scores level (123/9). Pryank Patel blocked out the last ball of the over and Ali (6*) hit the winning run to take the win from what at times looked like being a straightforward win and at other times a batting disaster to defeat.

It's the same old story, the bowling is excellent, the fielding patchy, with three sharp chances put down, a sitter shelled and a run out blown, but we are generating plenty of chances and the fielding should improve. Ali Javed (10-6-11-1) and Sanket Shah (10-1-37-3) were the pick of the bowlers. The batting needs to improve. Only Lee Crocker (35), Zaf Basit (18) and Sanket Shah (31) got into double figures, though Ali Javed (6*) provided vital support for Sanket at the death. Too many wickets were sold too cheaply, and we will have to improve as a batting unit if we are to repeat last years promotion.