Hamro Foundation Essex Cricket League Division Two, Saturday 3rd July
The first Saturday in July proved very humid and at times
damp, but in the end the sun shone through at Southchurch Park as hosts
Southend on Sea & EMT took on Gidea Park & Romford in a Hamro
Foundation Essex Cricket League Division Two contest.
The warm muggy (and occasional wet) conditions did not
affect the game in anyway, and a prompt toss was won by the hosts who elected
to stick the visitors into bat, and this turned out to be a bad decision as the
visitors, who are flying high in the division this term, found batting fairly
simple after a tricky early part of the innings scoring wise.
The hosts, who are struggling in the bottom two of the
division, tried to make use of the early damp and humid conditions, but opening
batsmen Sachin Vaja and Adam Thain saw off the new ball attack of Matt Mohan,
Luke Guyler and Chris Hunt and went onto build the foundation for their
innings, and in fact batted for more than thirty overs of the visitor’s
innings.
They put on a very decent 131 for the opening wicket before Thain
was finally out to host spinner Adam Hunt for 64, caught on the boundary by
Kieran Butler (thankfully as I was right behind him and was grateful, he did
catch it!!!), and then Adam Hunt picked up his and the hosts second wicket with
one of his worst balls when he short slow ball was hit down Mohan’s throat by
Vaja who made 68, he would have been disappointed to see his well made innings
end that way, but they had laid a foundation for their side at 157/2.
No further wickets were to fall in their innings either as Hasitha
Nirmal, who made a decent unbeaten 53, and Ubaid Kiani, who ended 31 not out
off just 20 balls, put on an unbeaten third wicket stand of 66 as the visitors
declared on 223/2 after 45 overs, meaning they had a minimum of 50 overs to
bowl their opponents out to take the win.
The 224 target was pretty much out of reach for the
struggling hosts who had struggled to score runs in their games this season,
and apart from skipper Joe Sibbons, no one had really shone with the bat so far
either, and therefore the home side didn’t even try to chase the target down
and decided to just try and bat out their innings to claim a draw against one
of the better sides in the division.
Sibbons aside though, none of the top seven batsmen got to
double figures and some decent opening bowling from Will Chuter, who returned
figures of 2-5 from ten overs, and James Pegram (1-13 from eight overs) and Sam
Hewitt (conceded just twelve runs in five overs) stifled the hosts batsmen as
they slipped to 13/3.
The main destroyer of the hosts innings though was spinner
Nirmal, who backed up his unbeaten fifty with 4-25 in nine overs as he ran
through the batting order as SOS & EMT slipped to 35/6 at one stage, and
although Sibbons and Alex Gillespie, who by the way was the only other batsmen
to reach double figures, put on 36 for the seventh wicket, when Gibbons was
bowled round his legs by the superb Nirmal for 43, at 71/7 the game was almost
over.
And another spinner, Sam Farrow, then came on to tidy up the
tail, bowling Matt Ridgewell and then trapping Chris Hunt in front of the stumps
to return figures of 2-6 in his 2.4 overs and end the match, dismissing the
hosts for just 76 in the 39th over and complete a crushing win for the visitors here. Shaun
Grant was unable to bat for the hosts as he pulled a hamstring during the Gidea
Park & Romford innings, meaning only ten batsmen for the hosts.
Not a good day for the home side then who slip to the bottom
of the table and are twenty points from safety with half their fixtures played,
whereas Gidea Park and Romford went to the top of the standings after this
result and hold a six point lead over second placed Wickford and a nine point
lead over third placed Leigh on Sea with the top two winnings promotion to Division
One, so the visitors are well placed with half their games to go.
For full scorecards and bowling figures of this game click
on link here https://essexcl.play-cricket.com/website/results/4644266
And here are some photos I took during the day…
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