Welcome to the 2021 cricket season. It seems extraordinary today the changes that have affected our lives since I wrote my welcome notes in 2020. Little then did we know what was instore for us. Amongst all the disruption though we still managed to play both competitive and friendly cricket last year and, perhaps even more remarkable, we even managed to go on tour to Devon in August. This was due almost entirely to the dogged determination of Peter “the tour is definitely not off” Munroe, and all at the club owe him a huge vote of thanks for what turned out for most of us to be the most normal event of the year.
We now enter our sixth year of league cricket and you continue to find us in division 8A. We are looking forward to continuing to play league cricket this year, and hopefully to continue our progress through the league structure.
On Sunday’s we continue to play friendly fixtures. These are mainly 40 over games, although we still enjoy the occasional timed game in the grand tradition of English village cricket.
We look forward therefore to welcoming back not only our regular opposition, but also a number of new teams, although it is always a particular pleasure to see familiar faces. We value your friendly competition and commit to ensuring that the great sporting traditions of our game are maintained.
Welcome back to our playing members and occasional teammates. We are fortunate to have a thriving club but we are not complacent and we continue to seek out new talent to maintain the lifeblood of the club and to play our part in supporting Aldenham Social Club.
On the captaincy front we are privileged to have such an able cricketer as Chris Munroe to lead our Saturday team. Whilst his playing statistics speak for themselves, what cricket we did play in 2020 was dominated by Karan Barot. He excelled with the bat, comfortably reaching a 1,000 runs which was a fantastic achievement in such a truncated season. We also welcome back Itty Haque as our Sunday skipper. I am sure the captains will continue to receive the full support of the club members and that this is reflected in the collective commitment to timely attendance and assistance with pitch preparation.
Our AGM this year was postponed to February and obviously took place as a virtual meeting. I was delighted that the challenges we faced in 2020 had not diminished the enthusiasm of the committee and all willingly volunteered to stay in post. The committee therefore comprises the fixture secretary, Tim Hale, team selector, Mike Ward, treasurer, David Whitehead, Aldenham Social Club liaison officer, Peter Munroe, secretary, Andy Jackson, welfare officer, Sachin Sanghvi and Vikram Chudasama as social media officer. I’d like to thank all the committee for their continued commitment to the club.
Also many thanks to all those others who provide support to the club. In particular to David Whitehead, Tim Hale, Chris Munroe and Pete Munroe for their hard work on our square, which is a great credit to Aldenham Cricket Club; to our vice presidents, who continue to make an important financial contribution to the club; and to Aldenham Social Club itself, for providing an idyllic setting for village cricket.