Matching travelled up the road to the quirky and well looked after Hatfield Heath ground (it has a road running through it) for the local derby on Saturday , the weather was warm and sunny.
Matching won the toss and had no hesitation in batting first. Graeme Bowerman and Jed Scanlon opened the batting and they put on 97 before the latter was out for a well made 28. Apart from Bowerman the Matching batsman never got going and the innings drifted along somewhat.
The Heath knew their ground well and bowled accordingly keeping things tight throughout the Matching innings. Michael Collins was the pick of the home side taking 3-36 off his 10 overs. Bowerman batted really well and carried his bat for an impressive 119no.
Matching made 230-4 , which was an odd score given the surface , a few more risks would surely have taken the score to 250 plus! M.Welby kept superbly for the home side showing some real quality.
Welby and C.Wearden opened the batting for the Heath and they put on 93 in good time before Welby was superbly run out by Jonny Taylor for 28.
Dan Sibley bowled some nice off breaks and then Paul Dawson and Simon Hartnell came in to the attack. Wickets started to fall and then Michael Collins came to the crease and batted superbly before being caught by a “worldy” at slip by Dawson for 27, it looked like a game changer but no !!
Matching kept chipping away but the finish line was always in sight and Mascall finally put the league leaders out of their misery with a nice on drive for 4 with just 2 balls remaining. Both Hartnell (3-52) and Dawson (3-42) bowled well and were the only wicket takers for the Green .
As was reported in the first encounter the Heath have a great unit and even when under strength on paper put on a superb performance and deserved their win. Matching must be rueing those extra runs they could have gone for. With all the other top sides winning Matching lose their unbeaten record and entertain Theydon Bois next Saturday .
Matching are still top of the league but their lead reduced from 38 points to 20.