Ricky 4ths youngsters win thriller by 4 runs in penultimate over

In a game with more twists and turns than a Brexit agreement, Rickmansworth and OM’s continually swopped places as favourites for yesterdays game. Ricky had a bold selection with probably the youngest individual Ricky team put up for a League game in living memory. 6 players still in education and Under 19, 4 of whom were Under 15. Less talk about the future and more about the here and now.

Put into bat Trigger and Hanuman started steadily enough but were pegged back to 20/2 after losing both Hanu and Owen in the early stages. Then young Faraz, son of Shammi, came to the crease and he hit the bad ball and kept out the straight one – a simple approach but one that works best on the top pitch. Trigger was eventually out for 17 (his second highest Ricky score) but by now Ricky were past 50. Harvey, 8, and Nasser, 1, both had a good time but not a long time before Bilal also concentrated hard and dug in and with extras and some good boundaries from Faraz the score crept over 100. After Faraz was out for a brilliant 42 including half the teams boundaries, Ken with 7 and George with one hit for 6, carried the score to 133/7. It was probably 30 short of a match winning score, but the team were ready to come back after tea and try to defend it.

Hanu and Callum opened the bowling but OM had some wily old Cricketers in the team and they saw off the youngsters hand grenades better than any other team so far this year. Hanu got one wicket before Harvey and faraz, both U15, were called into the attack. Harvey, now bowling pace, took a wicket with his 3rd ball also one with his 7th, though this was ruled out for a front-foot no ball. Eventually his 5 overs went for just 9 runs, which slowed down the reply. Faraz also got a wicket with his off spin. OM were 51/3 after 18 overs.

And so the game continued with OM’s happy to dig in and take the odd boundary or run when offered. Nazzar bowled out another player and Tony Mac kept floating the ball up. But OM’s were nervous and only hit 8 runs in the next 8 overs. Unfortunately 21 wides were conceded in the same period so OM’s were edging towards victory. And then fortunes turned. The batsmen started to hit out to score the 4.5 an over needed and wickets tumbled. A good catch by Ken at mid wicket; an even better one by Trigger behind the stumps and Tony also took a good return catch. Now OM’s were 7 down and then 8 down.

3 overs to go. OM’s needed 11 off 3. And they farmed Tony off his last over for 7 of those. 4 runs needed off 2 overs. Hanumann back into the attack. The first ball was smashed by the batsman, straight past Hanu, where it crashed into middle stump. The wickets had saved a certain boundary. and 2 balls later Hanu had his man, bowled. The last batsman, who was nervous as anything came to the wicket. First ball, dot, Second ball, dot. And now Hanu had one ball left before young Harvey would have to bowl the last over. Everyone was nervous now.

But then it happened – Hanu bowled a beauty on off stump which was sent careering back and Ricky had won an unlikely victory with 6 balls to spare. Queue much celebration as Ricky posted a fine win, with every player contributing to the overall win. Well done Ricky