Brilliant night for our club!
What a brilliant evening for our club! Both 1st XI and 2nd XI have reached HEBL finals day at the end of July!
The 1st XI won a hard fought battle on The Green against local rivals Hatfield Heath. Batting first Riz and Wardy got us off to a brilliant start. At 12 runs an over the potential was for a huge score but Riz holed out for a quick fire 43. Wardy and Sibbo continued the assault. When Wardy fell LBW for 48 and Sibbo hit a full toss down the throat of deep mid-wicket for 34 The Heath bowlers saw a chink in our armour. Some poor fielding including 3 dropped catches did not help their effort. Olly was run out with a direct throw at one stump and both Green and Lordy missed straight balls. Liversausage found some of his missing form with 12 not out and we reached a reasonable 177 for 6.
177 seemed an imposing score until some hard hitting for Raj George, in particular, got Hatfield Heath off to a great start in reply. Matty Taylor was uncharacteristically wayward and skipper Riz was smashed for 15 off his single over. After 10 overs Hatfield Heath were up with the rate with wickets in hand. Then our bowlers began to take control. Lordy took a couple of wickets when the batsmen missed his straight one ad Hassan looked very sharp. The introduction of Harry Capewell made the difference. Not only did he remove hard-hitting George for 59, he took two further wickets finishing his 4 overs for an impressive 3 for 19. The loss of George was a big blow for The Heath and they finished on 145 for 7 from their 20 overs, 32 runs short.
In the 2nd XI our lads also batted first but the top order struggled with the accurate Nazeing bowling. After some solid blows from Joe Scanlon we slipped to 43 for 7. Step up Assad Shah and Simon Bonas. Assad has shown signs of his quality in previous games but his 41 coming in at number 8 was invaluable. With 20 from Simon Bonas and some quick singles from Charlie and H the 2nd XI made a superb recovery reaching 118 all out from their 20 overs.
For 118 to be a winning score our bowlers had to perform and our lads didn't disappoint. Skipper Max lead from the front with 1 or 12 from his 4 overs. The Matching bowling remained tight and when inform Lorcan removed experience Kadwill for 27, the Nazeing innings faltered. Another wicket for Lorcan and more accurate bowling from Salim and Joe restricted Nazeing to 106 for 7 and we'd won a thrilling match by just 12 runs.
Both XIs now progress to HEBL finals day with both finals played simultaneously at Hockerill CC on Thursday 29th July, 6pm. Put the date in your diary... we want the whole club there to support our lads!
Tees HEBL League Cup final
Matching Green I v Thaxted or Farnham
Tees HEBL Shield final
Matching Green II v Lion Hawks