4th XI fail to shine on artificial surface

Fresh from his 47, 2 weeks ago, on the same surface, Harry once again showed his promise with a fluent 24, including 2 maximums, despite losing Vipin to just the 3rd ball of the innings. Stefan also scored 24, but Harry had already gone far too early and Prasanth couldn't repeat the heroics of his half-century from 2 weeks before. Yusuf Waqar made a good start with 13, but once again the Ricky side crumpled from 66/4 to 82/8. We really need a little more backbone in the middle order batting. Less 20:20 and more determination to bat out the overs.

Jack Lee hit some sturdy shots on his return to the side to take the score to almost 100, but it wasn't to be and Ricky fell a run or two short.

What followed was a lot of indiscipline from the Ricky bowlers, once the shine was off the ball. Jack Lee and Anuj Babber went for a combined 17 off their 10 overs, but only had one wicket to show for it. The following bowlers showed degrees of rustiness that would have put the tin man in The Wizard of Oz to shame. Chris and Phil bowled 13 wides between them and Vipin and Dylan another 8, which made extras outscore every Ricky batsman.

There wasn't time for usual bowlers Prasanth or Harry to show their skills as the game was gone in a flash with their own wizard, Plunkett, scoring a rapid 46 in the 54 balls he faced. So it's back to the nets for the bowling side as it was a cake walk for the Batchworth team. Ricky did take 5 catches, which is impressive in the 4th team, however more performances like this in the League games to come will see Ricky fighting at the wrong end of the table.

Next up Redbourn, who racked up 294 against us last year on their home ground. Let's hope the bowlers get their lines right for that challenge.