Scorecard

Aldenham Cricket Club v Hatch End II on Sat 07 May 2016 at 1300
Aldenham Cricket Club Won by 110 runs

Match report Aldenham 277/7 (Char Munroe 139, Wells 74)
Hatchend 166

• Aldenham kick off their Hertfordshire league campaign with a fine 111 run win over a decent looking Hatchend II on Saturday.

• Char Munroe turns in a man of the match performance, but was earlier seen sharing what looked like sweets with Dwain Chambers and Lance Armstrong.

• Tanios Watfa landed the NHS with a huge overtime bill as all weekend leave was cancelled for A & E staff, in anticipation of the injury prone run machine playing a double.

• Messers Watfa and Russell blotted the Parish scorebook with disastrous ducks in Aldenham’s inaugural league game.

• Amit Chakrawarti is no longer being considered for a UN peacekeeping role after an extended period of antagonism in the heat of battle.

On a perfect summer setting, the 11 chosen ones of ACC made their way out to do battle with Hatchend 2nd XI in what was our first ever match of our first ever season in the Herts league. Saturday skip Nic Hale lost the toss and the Parish were put into bat by a confident looking opposition.

Sadly, it is fair to say that the top order did not rise to the occasion in the least. Openers ‘Minty’ Munroe and R Russell started quietly, before Russell, on his fifth delivery, thrust his bat out too far and spooned the ball straight to short mid-wicket. The dejected opener could barely bring himself to look at anyone on his way back to the pavilion, knowing he had registered the club’s first ever league duck - and that his sympathetic team mates would use this as a stick to beat him with for the rest of his career (Danny Morgan also had his head bowed for the duration of this incident, but purely from trying to stifle his laughter).

Dan Wells went in to join Minty at no.3, and unfortunately Chris didn’t last long either, top edging an attempted drive and being comfortably caught; Although he at least got off the mark (9). He was replaced by Tanios Watfa at 4, and from there the innings went from ‘not ideal’ to ‘very precarious indeed’, as Watfa edged his fifth ball behind and was also on his way. Our first league game, and already 2 ‘duckers’!

Sensing that Russell was about to start looking for a tree from which to hang himself, Watfa alleviated the situation by giving the disappointed opener a new toy to experiment with, namely the tablet “scoreboard” app. The opener then spent the rest of the innings recording scores and building wagon wheel charts for scoring shots, while imagining what his would have looked like had he made any runs.

But when the chips are down, cometh the saviours. Sunday skip Char Munroe at 5 came out to join ‘The Wells’, and these two would be the only batsmen that Hatchend got a look at for a very long time. Char was the more fluent of the two, reaching 50 relatively easily and then accelerating towards his hundred at warp speed, while Mr Wells kept the score ticking over and only rarely walloped it over the boundary. Char’s hundred brought massive roars of approval from the Parish faithful, and even then the allrounder didn’t stop, eventually reaching 139 off only 103 balls before attempting a tired looking shot and being stumped. Char soaked in the applause as he made his way back to the shed, his joy possibly punctured by apprehension in the knowledge that it was likely to be very expensive in the bar later on, especially with Chris “Party Boy” Hewett soon to be in attendance.

Sir Daniel of Wells went on to make a fine 74, before he too played a tired looking drive and was also stumped. The innings was rounded off with a 3 from Sachin Sanghvi (to compliment the 1 and 2 he had already made during the previous weekends), an unorthodox and entertaining 9 from Frostie, a cameo of 0* from 0 deliveries from Tim “Levers” Hale, and a colossal 6 from Amit Chakrawarti off the only delivery he faced.

Both sides eagerly gobbled a plentiful and exotic tea from Mr Sanghvi, and a confident Parish went out into the field knowing that surely only a disaster would prevent them from claiming a debut league victory.

Levers and Amit opened the attack, the younger Hale extracting some prodigous lift coming up the hill, and Amit providing a constant menace at the other end. It wasn’t long before both had 2 victims apiece, the Hatchend top order knowing that with almost 7 an over required, only agression and big hits would get them anywhere near the target.

It was at this point that events took an ugly turn, following a (rejected) caught behind appeal against the opposition skipper. Did he edge it? This reported can’t be certain (I heard a noise, but it sounded like bat on pad to me). The oppo skip promptly lost it after the word ‘cheat’ was allegedly used (again, I did not hear this myself), refusing Nic’s attempt to placate the situation and making thinly veiled threats against both Amit and keeper Minty. Things settled down eventually, culminating in a stern warning from Captain Nic concerning the need to keep things civil.

Thankfully the rest of the innings passed without further incident. The introduction of slow bowlers Nic and Richard Doughty kept the run rate low whilst wickets continued to fall at a steady rate. Batting hero Char was then brought in to mop up the tail with the game plainly won (NB. No draws in the league - if the chasing team don’t make the target, they lose) and at 37.4 overs, Richard Doughty duly took the catch to capture the final wicket for Char, and send the Parish sprinting to get the post match jobs done, so that the serious business of ‘jug buying’ could begin!

MotM: It could only be Char, for a swashbuckling batting display and a skilful performance with the ball at the end. Near-unstoppable on the day.

Aldenham Cricket Club Aldenham Cricket Club Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
20nb 3w 10b 4lb 
for 7 wickets
37
277		        
Chris Munroe ct Steve 9 14 2 64.29 2
Robin Russell ct Steve 0 5 0
Daniel Wells st M Bora 74 104 7 71.15 2 1
Tanios Watfa ct Sherman 0 5 0
Charlie Munroe st M Bora 139 103 21 1 134.95
Sachin Sanghvi st M Bora 3 3 100
Michael Glover ct Nalla 9 7 2 128.57
Amit Chakrawarti Not Out  6 2 1 300
Tim Hale Not Out  0
Nic Hale  
Richard Doughty   1

Hatch End II Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Sherman8.0036136.004.50
Steve8.0134217.004.25
H Bora8.005100.006.38
Wright8.006600.008.25
M Bora7.0062320.678.86
Nalla1.0014114.0014.00

Hatch End II Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 5w 8b 3lb 
for 10 wickets
17
167 (37.4 overs)		     
Sherman ct T Hale 9
Jogi ct T Hale 14
Thanki ct T Hale 8
Challa b Chakrawarti 0
Howell lbw Chakrawarti 5
Williams b Doughty 41
Nalla ct N Hale 3
H Bora ct Char Munroe 38
M Bora run out (D. Wells) 6
Wright lbw Char Munroe 0
Steve Not Out  26

Aldenham Cricket Club Aldenham Cricket Club Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Tim Hale8.0136312.004.50
Amit Chakrawarti8.031728.502.13
Richard Doughty8.0046146.005.75
Nic Hale8.0135135.004.38
Charlie Munroe5.4222211.003.88