Hemel are frustrated by Hoddesdon in home draw
Hemel Hempstead CC’s teams were in action again last weekend with mixed results across the board.
The firsts hosted Hoddesdon and earned a winning draw as the Heath Park proved to be an excellent batting surface and Hemel proved unable to make the necessary bowling inroads into the Hoddy batting.
Hemel put together 270-8 from their 60 overs. Harry Ganley smote 82 from 84 balls until stumped attempting another big shot, a long 46 from 116 balls from John Cassidy and openers Hem Ilangaratne (39) and Brett Penny (32) started things off in the right direction.
Darren James (2-40) took a couple of early wickets but Hoddy then played things out. Hemel turned to spin and Parth Mehta took 3-27, and their were individual wickets for Harry Ganley (1-34), Freddie Lowe (1-19) and Ed Pike (1-34) but Hoddy blocked their way out to 216-8 and the draw.
*Hemel 2nds let their game slip away from them when hosts Datchworth 1sts were able to rescue their innings from 97-7 to get to 169 all out.
Their tail wagging proved to be key in Datchworth getting the win. Earlier Dil Khan (3-27) and Ed Grayson (2-26) had run through the Datchworth top order and put Hemel on top.
But 42 from no. 9 Nitin Sahni had rescued Datchworth as they climbed to a defendable score.
Only two Hemel batters made it to double figures with opener Lutero Corrigan making 24 and no. 3 Neil Morgan hitting 50. Whilst Morgan was there Hemel had a chance but the asking runs proved to be too many, bowled out for 137 to lose by 32.
*There was a comfortable thrashing for Hemel IIIs as they moved back up into third place in Div. 6A and a possible promotion place.
Putting visitors Ampthill into bat, Hemel opening bowler Lucas Bertin tore into them to take 5-26. Fellow opener Callum Humphrey took 2-18 as Ampthill were despatched for 90 from 30 overs.
Hemel then tapped off 92-2 from 21 overs, led by Max Clark hitting 69* from 66 balls with 12x4 and 1x6.
*Preston managed to do the double over Hemel 4ths as they beat them by 58 runs.
Batting first, Bill McIntosh (56*) held the Preston innings together from number five and got them up to a reasonable score. Best Hemel bowlers were Tayyab Sadiq (2-19), Drew Butler (2-29) and Miles Barnard (2-35). Drew Butler made 28* and earlier Finley Clark had made 29. Hemel were dismissed for 109 in 36 overs.
*The fifths overcame bottom side Hatch End on the road, who made 185-6 with 2-18 from Sabih Amin.
Hemel made it to 186-4 with three balls to spare. Young Harrison Brown opened with 53 and Jim Langley put in 54 to steer things along.
*International Cricket came to Hemel Hempstead last week when the touring New Zealand Over 70s took on a Rest of the World team including players from West Indies, Australia, Kenya and Scotland.
New Zealand were using the game as a warm up for their Over 70s World Cup campaign, which commencef this week with games scheduled against Sri Lanka, India, Australia, England, Canada and Wales.
Recovering from jet lag and not having played since March, the New Zealand team found it hard going against a strong RoW team, who won the game comfortably.