3's win again

The 3's were away at Watford Town IV on a cloudy day.

The skipper called incorrectly and the opposition skipper decided to insert the Village to bat.

Farzan Dulker Nain (4) and Pete Jaffe (45) opened the batting and in the first over and having just hit a boundary Farzan skied one to mid on for a simply catch. James Thompson (1) joined Pete at the crease and was watchful until the 6th over when he was bowled to leave the Village 14-2. Sanket Shah (33) was the next man in and he and Pete started to rebuild the innings on a pitch which was proving tricky to play on. The pair were playing sensibly and putting away the bad balls when they arrived to start to get the scoreboard ticking over and got to drinks at 77-2. The Village were eyeing up 170+ which would have been a good score to defend as the pitch was doing a bit. Four overs after the drinks break Sanket hold out to long off to bring in Paul Simpson (8) and then 2 overs later Pete was bowled to leave the Village 96-4. Inthikhab Mazeez (11) joined Paul at the crease and the run rate began to drop as the bowling was tight and it was difficult to come in and bat fluently on the pitch. The pair put on 23 for the 5th wicket before Paul was trapped LBW in front of the stumps. Mohamed Salahudeen (8) was next in but Inthi was next out trying to force the pace as he was bowled. Andrew Godfrey (2) was next in but Mo was bowled and then Godders was next out as he was bowled and became the 6th wicket of the young spinner to leave the Village 136-8. Mathan Mahalingam (12*) and Siddhesh Kuradkar (5) were the next men in and tried to bat the remaining overs and try to get the score past 150. In the last over first Sidd was run out going for a 2nd run before Chalky Cara (0) was also run out in the same fashion without facing a ball as the Village finished on 148 all out.

Andrew Godfrey (5-16) and Mathan Mahalingam (2-16) opened the bowling and the opposition got off to a flyer as they put on 20 before Godders struck in his 2nd over to bowl the number 1 batsman. In the next over, confusion between the batsman meant that there was an easy run out thanks to good work from Mohamed Salahudeen who threw the ball to Mathan to take off the bails. A couple of overs later and Mathan was in the wickets with 2 in an over both bowled as the number 2 and 5 departed to leave Watford Town 28-4. The next over saw Godders repeat the trick as he picked up 2 wickets, one courtesy of a smart catch from Inthikhab Mazeez and the other bowling the number 7 as the opposition were reduced to 28-6. This would soon become 33-8 as Godders produced another 2 wicket over as he first trapped the number 6 batsman LBW before bowling the number 9 to pick up a deserved 5 wicket haul. Siddhesh Kuradkar (1-9) came onto replace Mathan and in his first over had bowled the number 10 batsman. Sanket Shah (0-10) came on for a couple of overs, before Mohamed Salahudeen (0-3) replaced him. The number 8 and number 11 put on a bit of a partnership at the end but it was left to Chalky Cara (1-3) to finish off the innings thanks to a low catch from Mathan as the innings finished on 70 all out.

A very comfortable victory in the end thanks to the bowlers who were superb. Pete Jaffe and Sanket Shah put on a good partnership of 74 with the bat to provide the platform to the Village innings. Andrew Godfrey was the star man with his maiden 5 wicket haul and with Mathan Mahalingam destroyed the opposition batsman first up to pick up 7 of the wickets between them, reducing them at one point to 33-8. The Village stay 2nd in the table and will need to keep winning to keep their promotion push going.