Rickmansworth beat Ickleford by 5 wickets

Rickmansworth beat Ickleford by 5 wickets (30 points)

Rickmansworth confirmed their early season expectations with a professional victory over Ickleford by 5 wickets. The Groundsman Tim Molloy had prepared a surprisingly firm surface, despite the previous weeks rain, and so Ickleford chose to bat first. However Marc Robinson (1-24) and Kamber Hussain (2-18) quickly got amongst the wickets. 36/3 quickly became 60/5 as ex-Spanish International Sam Lupson took his first 2 Rickmansworth wickets to give him figures of 2-19. However once again it was the captain himself, Chris Lyons, who took the honours with 3 wickets for 27 runs of tight spin bowling, whilst evergreen Ray Collins polished off the tail with 2-5. “We gave away nothing in the field” purred a satisfied Lyons “and we knew 105 was not going to be enough”.

However the skipper may have been regretting his comments early in the reply as both Gunawardeena (4) and Gregory (4) were back in the hutch rapidly as Ickleford cleverly opened with the old ball and two spinners. However Amit Bhudia (29) and Lyons himself (29) wrested back control of the run chase. The only concern was for the safety of players and spectators, especially when Lyons drilled a ball back which hit the umpire and laid Jeffrey out for a few minutes. But after an icepack and a short break the game recommenced, with Hussain replacing Bhudia and continuing the boundary theme. Once Lyons was out, Rickmansworth favourite Mike Horwood, now back from a spell playing for Chiltern, struck 14 in 3 blows to finish the game in style.