OK, apologies to the two people who may actually read these random ramblings. I didn’t get around to writing about last weeks match against Great Gaddesden. To be fair aside from Snehal and the US bound Matt G’s 80’s, the highlight was really Doug’s innings of 32 in which he was dropped no less than 7 times and the one time the opposition did manage to catch him they forgot to appeal. Well suffice to say a comfortable victory by 140 odd runs meant that going into this week’s match the 3’s were hoping that a win combined with a Chipperfield loss with 14 points or less would all but secure promotion.

This week’s game was against the youthful West Herts 4th team on what was most definitely a slightly dubious track in the wilds of the Buckinghamshire village of Penn Street. The opposition were so youthful that their warmup genuinely involved games of pat-a-cake….not too sure whether this is straight from the ECB coaching handbook, however it was definitely food for thought.

Wicket-keeper Owen had the misfortune of leaving his car keys in his girlfriend’s car – a slightly panicked phone call to skipper Gaurav meant that it was probably advisable to bat first. Well, bat first we did. In Owen’s absence, Doug and Snehal were reunited in their previously successful opening partnership. The pair took off where they had left off before Gaurav’s mid-season strategy change – a brisk partnership of 98 was undone when the previously struggling West Herts quick bowler surprised Doug with a ball that not only bounced on the wicket but was actually straight.

The tardy Owen, now made it to the crease and it seemed slightly odd that at first he had completely forgotten that batting involves using the willow in your hand and not just trying to shin each ball to the boundary. A number of energetic appeals were turned down before the penny dropped and he started to use the bat as per normal cricketing convention.

It was at this point that Snehal too decided to stop smashing the ball into the neighbouring cornfield and provided a somewhat lofted pull which was well taken at mid-wicket. He had by that point secured back-to-back 50’s so all was not lost really.

All that was left now was for Callum to come in and support Owen in taking apart the bowling attack. Both played fluently in a stand of 140+, and it wasn’t until Owen came a cropper on 80 that the partnership was finally broken.

A dashing cameo from Waheed continued the fun and when he was finally out Manny came in to face the final ball. Sadly for the Brummie bovine botherer, he was only able to get an “honourable golden duck” as he nicked off from his first (legitimate) ball. Still, a score of 289 was pretty great and the only real downcast face at the end was Callum’s as he was unfortunate to be stranded on 48.

The West Herts innings began apace. The opening pair were managing to keep up with the required run rate however it felt like a couple of wickets would really change the course of the game in Ricky’s favour. Following a couple of drops, the breakthrough finally came when the returning Hanuman was rewarded for his exceptionally tight spell with the wickets of both openers (8-4-9-2).

It’s also important to mention the contributions of both the fielding dynamo that is Saffy and also Bilal who both went for less than 4 an over and were both unlucky to go wicketless. Their consistency paved the way for the subsequent scoreboard pressure that no doubt resulted in later wickets.

So anyhow, once the core batsman had been removed, skipper Gaurav brought himself on to clean up the remaining batters. Receiving plenty of support from chief cheerleader Bobby C, the skipper used his guile (and Snehal’s safe hands) to pouch 4 wickets.

The innings closed on 175-7. In reality the game had drifted for quite some considerable time as West Herts never really had the option of chasing such a big target with such a young team. Anyhow, you can only beat what is in front of you, and beat them we did.

Berkhamsted duly beat Chipperfield, which means that with promotion all but secure, the big question is who gets the bragging rights of winning the division. The next two games are against the bottom two teams, so although nothing can be taken for granted this felt like an important win in hopefully achieving the goal of back-to-back championships.