Back to winning ways in challenging conditions

The last of the 50 over games for now was away to Cockfosters 3's in overcast conditions at Old Minchendenians ground. I lost the toss and we were faced with the unusual situation of batting first. Openers Zaf Basit and Lee Crocker faced the Cockfosters skipper bowling left arm over down the hill and three balls later Zaf was back in the hutch, dabbing high to second slip who plucked the ball from the air (0/1). The Cockfosters opening bowlers were accurate and the ball was seaming around so Lee and Andrew Teague set about surviving the opening spell. With only 16 runs on the board after the openers had finished their 14 over stint, the Village had some work to do to set a decent total. Fortunately, runs flowed from at least one end of the change bowlers and the score had moved on to 79 when Lee miscued to mid on and was caught for 35 in the 29th over. Pete Jaffe took full advantage from a couple of loose deliveries but swung across the line and was bowled through the gate for 8 (88/3). Andrew (39) followed shortly afterwards, caught LBW from the accurate offspin of Christian Teale (91/4). Sanket Shah (6) was then bowled by a good ball and Darshan Raval (5) was caught behind in the next over to leave us on 102/6 with two new batsmen at the crease. Anand Kumar and Dave Flavell had the task of stopping the rot and setting a defendable target. Fortunately, Anand was finding the middle of the bat regularly and the scoreboard ticked along at about 5 an over to take us to 141 with 5 overs to go. Anand, though struggling with a calf strain, accelerated taking 48 from the last 5 overs, including 20 from the last over of Cockfosters captain Darren Medforth, until he was bowled for 69 by the penultimate ball, having added 87 with Legs in the last 13 overs. The innings finished on 189 for 7 from our 50 overs, a decent total that we felt quietly confident about defending on a large pitch with a slow outfield.

The Cockfosters innings started in a similar manner to the Village innings, i.e. slowly, though both openers were dropped before Ali Javed bowled young left hander Dan Stead for 0. Darshan Raval joined in, having number 3 bat Neil Hale caught by Anand, also for 0. Unusually, Ali was struggling with his line and was replaced after 5 overs by Sanket Shah, who couldn't get a decent grip on the new ball and was in turn replaced by Dave Flavell..... who also struggled with excessive and at times uncontrollable swing in the overcast conditions. Opener Yasir Khan and number 4 bat Dan Rollo were looking settled and the run rate began to climb. Murtuza Amin had replaced Darshan and was also finding the bowling conditions difficult. Rollo was finally caught for 14 after skying one from Pryank Patel to Dave Flavell, who also dropped a tricky running chance to remove Khan. Pryank then had Xavier caught at mid on by Lee Crocker and bowled Khan for 35, at which point 10 man Cockfosters gave up the run chase and settled for batting out the overs and getting as many batting points as possible. Ali bowled Christian Teale for 23 and Murtuza skittled Ian Bright for 2. Lee Crocker finished the innings with his first over of the year and Cockfosters ended on 160 for 7, including a massive 36 wides!

The inability of any of our usually excellent bowlers to bowl accurately from one end due to the overcast, humid conditions will hopefully not be repeated. At the other end, Darshan (1 for 12) and Pryank (3 for 17) bowled well, joined by Ali in his second spell (2 for 17). We've played at Old Minchendenians before and not had any problems previously. Our unusually slow start with the bat was due to the challenging bowling of the Cockfosters openers, though both Lee Crocker (35) and Andrew (39) went on to score more freely. This was followed by a middle order slump in which we lost 5 wickets for 23 runs. Anand's aggressive innings of 69, supported by Dave Flavell (13*), was a match winner in the situation.

Mill Hill Village 2's 30 points, Cockfosters 3's 11 points.

Next up Abbots Langley 3's at home