Ricky 2nds self-destruct against Hatch End

On one of the quickest decks at Park Road for a number of years, Ricky started confidently enough against Hatch End with Kasser and Paul seeing off the new ball. As the scoring rate started to increase Paul was out unwisely glancing a ball into 1st slips hands, however Bobby and Kasser made good going to reach 69/1 by the 20th over. A score of well over 200 was on the cards but then tragedy struck as Kasser was judged LBW in the last over of Grace’s spell. At the time Kasser had 37 and was looking very likely to carry on his form from last week’s 66. Worse still 2 overs later and Bobby was also given out LBW and Ricky were reeling on 76/3 having handed Hatch end the initiative. What followed next can only be described through hands over the face as Raz, Kamran and Chris each chipped balls into the hands of grateful fielders when pushing for runs that were not perhaps required. Now Ricky were 86/6 and had lost 5 wickets for 15 runs to what was some fairly innocuous bowling. Waheed (14) and Ronesh (9) fared little better, but did manage to put on 18 runs to take Ricky to 104/6. However once again the curse was to strike as both were clean bowled as was Simon and the unfortunate Dave Jacks on debut got a shooter that left no doubt as to his being out LBW. 9 wickets for 36 runs and 3 of them LBW decisions, showing the honesty of this Ricky team.

Once the Hatch End innings commenced, all charity went out of the window as what can only be described as a number of close LBW shouts were adjudged to be sliding down leg-side. And what was witty banter in the first innings turned into aggressive posturing and language aimed at the Ricky team. Brett Harvey bowled an immaculate line and length in 10 overs where he took 2-11. Bobby also took 2 wickets but in reaching for his prodigious in-swing, occasionally veered on the side of full and was pushed through the offside at times for a handful of boundaries. This Ricky team doesn’t know when to give up though and to the end kept bowling it in the right spot. But the Hatch End skipper in particular was very watchful and gave no chances. Raz bowled some beauties but got no reward either and though Hutch picked up a nice caught and bowled it was just a consolation as Hatch End cruised to a 4 wicket win.

Whereas against Potters Bar, Ricky were undone by a great batting performance, on this occasion the blame had to lie with the batsmen, with the exception of Kasser, who contrived to give our wickets away for no particular reason. It was heartbreaking to see a 200+ wicket and batting line up get crushed in such a fashion to what was really just old-fashioned straight bowling and a well set field.
Now comes the hard graft as the win-lose-draw games are upon us. Normally Ricky’s Achilles heel, it’s hoped that some decent performances can keep Ricky 2nds in the hunt for an automatic promotion spot.