U11: Rickmansworth beat West Herts by 7 wickets

First game of the season and it was difficult to tell who was more nervous – the boys, the parents or the coach. After last years heroics when this group of lads went all the way to The County Finals Day, was this step up to 11 a side and hard ball cricket going to work?
Ricky skipper Aled won the toss and put West Herts in. And opened the bowling with a nice tight over conceding one run. Alec started with a wide but bowled well also and after these two had bowled out the score was 11-0. Arno was next to bowl and swung the ball hugely and it was he who got the first wicket, bowled, and WHCC 23-1. Then it was the Sam show as our talisman took 2 wickets in his next over to reduce West herts to 24-3. And even better, young Hamza, playing 2 years up, made his Chairman father very proud with a wicket off his first ball. A beauty that tailed away and cut back to hit middle stump. From 26-4 West herts recovered to 49/4 before Joe took two wickets in his first over including a special caught and bowled. The last 3 overs were a little frenetic enabling West Herts to post 66/6. Not a bad effort but possibly a little short of par. A great deal of this was also due to some terrific wicket keeping by young Ollie.

Alec and Henry opened the batting but found it hard going against some tight West Herts bowling. After 6 overs we were 16-0 and slipping behind the asking rate. However when Henry was out, caught by the keeper, Aled came in to run and hustle. Alec was out for 9 2 overs later, but in came Oliver and the score reached 29-2 after 10 overs. 37 more needed oof the next 10. However Ollie decided not to hold back and 13 off the next 2 overs released a lot of pressure before Aled unfortunately kicked the ball onto his own stumps. But with Sam for company Ollie really took the game away from West Herts with some stunning shots around the ground. And with no more wickets to fall, Ollie was on 21* when Sam found his form to crack a boundary to give Ricky the win by 7 wickets.

So a winning start and a fantastic evenings work which was down to some terrific bowling from all the boys