Debutant Kanade snags five wickets in big victory

There were good wins for both Hemel's 1st and 2nd X1s on Saturday as well as a near-miss the for 3rds.
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After a couple of draws, it was back to the winning ways for Hemel I with victory over Old Albanian at their ground.

At the halfway stage of the league season it means Hemel are now in third place in the Division One table, 17 points off the top.

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Put in by Old A’s, Lewis Hodgins felt the strange force of cricket. After hitting centuries on Saturday and Sunday last weekend, he was bowled out first ball this time around.

Tom Elborn (54) came to the rescue and together with Jack Doodson (37) and Josh Graves (30) saw Hemel to a score of 178.

It didn’t appear to be the greatest total but with three run-outs and a stumping in that score, it showed Hemel were going for it.

New acquisition Sindhu Kanade then appeared, an opening bowler who used to play for Welwyn Garden City and, briefly, Radlett. His first six overs returned figures of 3-9 as he took out the first trio of Old A’s batters.

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Nick Hodgins (2-20), Parth Mehta (2-34) and Duncan Howard (1-25) saw out the remainder before Sindhu returned to take out the last wickets to finish with debut figures of 10 - 2 - 27 - 5.

This Saturday they travel to Kings Langley (1pm) – the same opponent as their Heath Park Cup foes from last night (Tuesday – see p63).

A great run-chase last weekend was followed by a great bowling performance this weekend as Sawbridgeworth II’s were bowled out for just 96 by Hemel II.

The ‘king twins of spin’ Cameron Hutcheon (4-41) and Richard Morton (4-32) did most of the damage. Sawbo were 70-2 after 20 overs but Hutcheon and Morton ran through them to take the next eight wickets for just 26 runs.

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In reply, Hemel’s Ryan Bell (59 not out) and Aaron Wilson (26 not out) took just an hour and 16 overs to see off the 97 needed for victory.

Hemel III were crying out for a final wicket to get only their second victory of the league campaign, but it was not to be as Hertingfordbury managed to shut up shop to get a draw.

When batting Hemel were indebted to Ryan Wilson (61) and Ed Canham (51) who put on 109 for the third wicket.

At the top Graham Clark opened with 27 and Charlie Hoskins added a quick 26 down at number seven. Hoskins also picked up the two Hertingfordbury openers when bowling and ended with 3-28.

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Bryan Davies took 4-26 and Scott Radcliffe 2-39 but the last Hertingfordbury pair dug their heels in to hold out, 48 runs behind and with one wicket to go.

Hemel IV endured a rather crushing defeat, particularly after Nic Benson had torn into the West Herts opening batting to return figures of 15-4-18-5.

Their lower-order batsmen managed to get West Herts III up to 165-9 from their 53 available overs.

Hemel showed no batting nous to chase the total. Sunny Clark made 19, Mike Samuels 18 and Rahul Kedia 12. No-one else made double figures as they were bowled out for 67.