Rickmansworth 4s Finally get Their Numbers Right

Ricky 4’s travel to Hatch End II needing a win to re kick start their season after just 1 win, the numbers game can into play from the very start when Captain Ken counted his troops to find Ricky had 12 players, still not sure how, but Ken took the decision to drop himself and make way for what look a very youthful Ricky team.

The game was delayed so a 32 over match was agreed upon, One of the funniest moments was Ken asking the team what age group they were in with replies of 18/19 Ken’s look of shock and thought of when did these kids grow up as he submitted the Ricky team sheet, Yusuf took over the captaincy and Ricky were to Bat first and a good start needed to post a competitive total. Up stepped Phil Croft and Aswin Karthik, to say the first 6 overs of the game was the hardest was a understatement the ball seemed and swung and the openers played and missed more than they actually hit the ball, but the ball soon got soft and key for Ricky no wickets lost, Phil started to find his range hitting anything away on leg and Calls to run probably heard in Rickmansworth started to push the scoreboard along nicely, a change of bowling brought the first wicket Ashwin (10) but Ricky had a foundation with a strong batting line up the team continue to accelerate to 86-4 with Phil finally being caught in the deep for a really good 39 and backed up well by Gourav 18 and Hitamsh 12 finally Ricky had a start and with Wickets in hand could attack the last 10 overs, With Hatch End's two danger bowlers also bowled out Ricky took the attack to Hatch End with Matt Atkins smashing the ball out the ground into the cow field for a huge 6 before departing for 19 Prasanth came and went and Faraz Hussain made a good 10, this brought skipper Yusuf and Bilal to the crease and the score at 117 with 3 overs to go the pair ran hard and smashed the ball all round the ground scoring 37 off the last 3 overs Yusuf 27no Bilal 12no took Ricky to 156-7 after their allotted 32 overs, finally a decent total for the bowlers to defend .

Hatch End batted all the way down so this was not going to be easy for Ricky and the two openers looked in no real danger seeing off the first 10 overs and Ricky's opening bowling pair of Yusuf and Prasanth but were always behind the run rate and what started at just under 5 an over soon moved to 6 and the fielding and energy from Ricky was their to see as the guys did everything to keep the pressure on, Bilal and Ashwin bowled really tight and kept this pressure on and finally got the breakthrough when the comfortable openers had to push the scoring along and 3 quick wickets put Hatch End in trouble, one was an amazing stumping from the ever young Neil Burdett realizing the batsman had stepped out of his crease quickly hitting the stumps with an amazing bit of skill and quickness, getting Ashwin (2-21) his second wicket However the game was far from over with Hatch End 2 danger men now in and starting to hit boundaries for fun, another moment of magic turned the game for Ricky with Matt Atkins, playing his first game of the season, taking himself out of his usual slip position to reinforce the boundary took a catch running in and diving full stretch from a powerful hit that was hit hard and low, amazing scenes as no one could believe the big man even got close to the ball, let alone caught it, another well-deserved wicket for Bilal who had bowled brilliant all game (2-26) and this set the tone the fielding continued to be really good and the run rate kept rising and wickets falling Gourav (3-21) Patel (2-8) put Ricky well on top with Hatch End needing 48 off the last 5 with only 2 wkts in hand, a good effort from Hatch Ends no 10 and a comical non run out where the batsman was walking back as Prasanth had the ball in his hands standing next to stumps and decided to try what Neil did earlier and throw at the stumps missing by miles instead of taking one step and removing the bails, made tense finish but Skipper Yusuf (1-24) capped off his allround performance by bowling the no 11 and giving Ricky a well deserved win by 24 Runs