2's cruise to a comfortable victory against Leverstock Green

Our first away game of the season was against Leverstock Green 3s at Parmiter's School in North Watford. The skipper called incorrectly and the home side chose to bat. Bowling across a steeper slope than the Village, Ali Javed had an eventful first over. The first ball was a wide, followed by a perfect delivery which rearranged the stumps and gave opening batsman Graham Evans an early trudge back to the pavilion. New batsman Tom Callingham pushed two runs, followed by another wide, before himself being bowled (4 for 2). Gareth Tucker and Mike Downes then provided a bit of stability to the innings, with Tucker cutting and driving fluently to take the score to 17 before Shash Seem bowled Downes (2). No 5 bat Chris Saxby put together Greens best stand, with the left/right hand pair combined with the slope to make the bowlers line tricky to find, and made decent progress until Tucker snicked the ball to Zaf Basit to give Shash his second wicket (41/4 from 12 overs). Another reasonable stand followed until Saxby (27), who had been pulling the ball with some success, played all around a straight ball from debutant Anand Kumar (62/5). Wickets tumbled at regular intervals from this point, aided by a stunning diving catch from Shash at square leg to give Anand his third wicket, and a similar effort by Kudzai Makopa at cover to give Paul Simpson his first victim. Paul then bowled Herts Under 16 Rebecca Tyson to bring the Green innings to an end on 90 from 32.2 overs.

The village reply started briskly with Zaf Basit hitting 7 from the first over of tall opening bowler Sam Roberts, only to be bowled by an in-ducker from the first ball of his second over (8/1). Andrew Teague was joined by Darshan Raval and the pair set themselves to see off the decent Green opening bowlers whilst taking some brisk singles. Andrew and Darshan were happy to leave the off stump line of Tom Callingham, with wides pushing the total along until Andrew was forced to play at a ball which nipped down the hill and edged to Green captain Neil Fleming at first slip (29/2, 12th over). Pete Jaffe then pushed proceedings along with several boundaries before being bowled on 23 by a ball turning up the hill (67/3). Kudzai Makopa (3) then fell victim to Darshan 'Inzy' Raval's second run out of the season, with an offside push from Darshan being deflected by a foot to another fielder and Kudzai, faced by the onrushing Darshan, sacrificed his wicket for the good of the cause. Darshan finished off victory with a succession of boundaries off Rebecca Tyson to finish on 31 not out and give us a comfortable 6 wicket victory.

After last weeks drama, it was nice to cruise to a comfortable win. As usual the bowling was tight, with Ali getting us off to a flying start, helped by Shash and Anand Kumar picking up 3 for 25. The catching was improved from last week, with a couple of spectacular diving catches from Shash and Kudzai the highlight. Darshan Raval (31*) and Pete Jaffe (23) made light work of the below par total. Next week we are away to newly promoted and also undefeated Redbourn 3's, who we faced 5 years ago in our first match in the Herts League.

Mill Hill Village 2's 30 points, Leverstock Green 3's 4 points