Good win gets us climbing up the league table

Our third game of the season was a visit to Chiltern 06, who finished one spot below us in the league last year. The weather was great with strong sun and a cooling breeze. Captain Downes lost the toss as usual and Chiltern elected to bat. The Chiltern wicket, which was horrible the previous year, produced a ball in opening bowler Birju Lukka’s first over which popped up and Chiltern opener Sam Stabler edged to first slip, taken at the second attempt by Graeme Burton. At the other end Lee Crocker's first ball was dropped at first slip by Zafar Basit, clearly missing wearing the gloves, to give the other opener Matthew Atkins a second chance, which he swiftly took advantage of with a well timed four through point. Crocker’s second over then produced a shooter which didn’t really bounce and bowled Andrew Bird, the Chiltern No 3 who walked off in disgust as if he had never played on this pitch before. This brought in Sheikh Faisal who in combination with reprieved opener Atkins produced Chiltern’s highest partnership of 37 for the third wicket. Faisal set about the Village attack, trying to slog anything loose and regularly teasing the Village fielders with ‘well placed’ shots falling everywhere apart from where fielders were. Faisal was eventually bowled by Jon Bird for a lively 19 and was swiftly followed by opener Atkins bowled by Wingnut for 33 leaving Chiltern on 53-4 with their first four batsmen in the pavilion. Wickets then fell at regular intervals with only Richard Harwood (12) and Zeeshan Sabri (19) putting up resistance until captain Richard Downes sensed some easy Fantasy Cricket points for the taking and finished off the innings mystifying batsmen 8 and 11 with his well flighted spin bowling and Chiltern finished on 108 all out, two short of the first batting points.

Village openers Zaf Basit and Piers Jenkins were tied down from the start by accurate opening bowling before Piers was caught off the bowling of John Goodenough for 2. Zaf swiftly followed LBW at the other end by Sabri for 3 leaving MHV on 9 for 2. Batsman number 4 Rory Macleod was busy doing a number 2 and was replaced by Sanket Shah. Sanket and Jon Bird then scored freely against an increasingly wayward Chiltern attack with Faisal (21 from 2 overs) and Majeed (12 off 1 over) suffering. Sanket either felt guilty about batting ahead of Rory or needed to go to the loo himself and had a particularly shaky over against left arm bowler Brendan Lindsey but somehow didn’t quite manage to get out. The target was reached in 24.2 overs by a partnership of exactly 100 to bring the Village home to an 8 wicket victory.

Conclusions
Another comfortable win for the 2’s, with our tight bowling attack setting the foundations and a solid partnership from Jon Bird and Sanket Shah seeing us home. Again we were a little lucky with Chiltern, who only run one side, being weakened by the absence of several players. Wickets were shared out amongst all bowlers with 7 batsmen bowled, 2 LBWs and only one catch showing the accuracy of MHVs bowling attack. Numerous catches were dropped - Zaf 2, Crocker 2 and Jon Bird amongst others and a spectacular ‘refusal’ by Piers from a towering mishit to deep Fine Leg.

Mill Hill Village 30 points, Chiltern 2.