Ricky 5ths, which is quickly becoming and Saturday 'thing', travelled to North London to take on Whittington CC. Two debutants on boarding U15's Theo and Barnaby, and a welcome return to 2024 for Parag and Sohan.

Choosing to bowl first, Ricky were rather perturbed to find William playing for Whittington, who used to play for Harpendedn3rds (Div 5) and rightly so as he was by far the best player on display plundering 62 runs. Luckily the Ricky bowlers had the other end to bowl at which was much more our standard and Naresh got one, Barnaby another (debut wicket with his 6th ball) and Parag took 2 more. Then on came Chandru who wanted to bowl spin and he took 5 wickets to tidy up the tale after Sohan had spun one past William's defence. Sohan was probably the pick ofg the bowlers taking 1-12 in his 8 overs, having to bowl against William - however Chandru's 5-22 in 33 balls was the best on numbers alone. The last pair put on 19 to take the score up to 149.

Tea came in between and a mountain of sandwiches, crisps, fruit, grapes, energy drinks and cakes spoiled us rotten.

Ricky started a little slowly (understatement) and were on 10 after 8 overs. The run rate was climbing. After 13 overs Rushil stepped aside to let the youngsters have a go, in a wonderful piece of spirit, and although Ken and Paul (combined age 130) thought this was our chance, Josh was in next. He got 7, and then Theo came in on debut. He looked classy and although he lost Kanna (18) and Barnaby (0), he stayed in good touch. 15 overs to go and needing 80 to win, Paul (21) tried to give it a go, but the wickets wasn't helping. Theo and Ken both were bowled and by now it was too late, although Chandru gave it a go scoring 16 clubbed runs to secure his MoM award.

Ricky ended on 122. We will definitely being turning again to Whittington for another fixture later in the season. The 5th team roll on and welcome new players - no registration needed and no commitment other than to play the game on the pitch in the right spirit.