On Monday evening, it was Rickmansworth’s turn to grace the pastures of Cobden Hill.

We are on a bad trot with the toss, as once again our opposition called correctly and requested for us to take the field. Ben had the armband today, and it was he who took the new ball. His reward was two early wickets in his two over spell, and he finished with fine figures of 2-6. Radlett managed to control the narrative for the innings, fielding eagerly and claiming wickets at regular intervals. Rickmansworth do however seem to bring out the worst of our bowling ‘accuracy’, we conceded a mountain of extras at their place a couple of weeks back, and this was no different, as we managed to cough up a combined total of 43 wides and no balls. Despite this, we were able to restrict our visitors to 99-7 from their 20 overs, and when our bowling wasn’t straying there was some decent stuff in there too, Nimay (2-4) the stand out, with two well deserved wickets. Other wicket takes were Ayaan 1-9, Dylan J 1-12 & Vivaan 1-16 and there were tidy contributions from Luke H (0-5) and Lucas (0-6). Catches were taken by Ayaan and Harry.

Vivaan and Oliver opened up, and got off to a busy start, each collecting boundaries in the early overs. Thus it was a surprise when Vivaan (11) fell, having missed a straight one. Oliver played a delicious drive through square cover but succumbed shortly thereafter for 21. At this stage, we were 3 wickets down for 38 and a bit of a reset needed. Ayaan and Issa duly provided the glue as they built a partnership. When Ayaan (9) departed, Issa played a more expansive role, finding the boundary on five occasions, a sweetly timed lofted shot over midwicket being the pick. When he retired on 26* it was left to Harry (12*) and Dylan (1*) to see us over the line. A victory by 5 wickets with 2.3 overs to spare. Putting our extras count to one side, we played some pleasing cricket and ran out worthy winners on the night.

M.O.M. Ben and Nimay both performed admirably with the ball and Oliver gave our batting a useful platform, but, when Issa came in it needed someone to steer us to victory and he duly delivered, so he bags the award this week