Wednesday, 7/24/2024
On Saturday 20th July 2024, the Old Citizens Cricket club played a St. Albans eleven in a 35 over match. It was originally meant to be played at the Metropolitan sports ground in Bushey but when they cancelled the booking we ended up playing on a ground in Verulamium Park in St. Albans. Because of two late drop outs Junky recruited Amir Iqbal and Rehan Mahmood from the Fixture List. I won the toss but we had little choice but to bat first as there were only six of us on time. Amir and Rehan opened the batting and they raced to 21 off the first 9 balls before Rehan hit a short ball straight to extra cover. The pitch was on a bit of a slope and the ground had an even bigger slope with longish square boundaries but short straight ones. The older of the opening bowlers found a decent line and was moving the ball away from the right handers with a combination of swing and the slope. Osman found the going tough and was caught behind for 3 and then Kirtiman was lbw for a duck. In contrast Amir was scoring freely, and we had a couple of delays when the ball disappeared into the surrounding bushes and nettles. By the time the third wicket fell we had reached 56 from 10 overs. James came in and was largely content to play second fiddle to Amir although he hit a lovely six over mid off. Amir sped past 50 before James was caught at cover for 11. Amir was out soon afterwards for a swashbuckling 80 with the score now 112 for 5. He had enjoyed a bit of luck when being dropped twice but had displayed a great array of shots. Ahmed joined Urshan but was then bowled by a leg spinner for 2. Urshan and I put on 20 before he was bowled for 13. Dinesh then played on to be dismissed for 2 and Sakeeb was bowled first ball to leave us on 139 for 9 with five overs to go. Richard and I were able to add 27 for the last wicket before he was run out in the last over for 9. I played a handful of cover drives to end up unbeaten on 26 as we closed on 166. Dinesh and Ahmad opened the bowling with the slope helping the swing for both bowlers. St. Albans opened with two youngsters, a right and a left hander and for much of the opening skirmishes Dinesh was bowling his away swingers to the right hander while Ahmad had the left hander playing and missing as the ball swung away from him. A couple of streaky boundaries between the slips got the scoreboard moving but St. Albans only scored 33 in the first 10 overs. Richard and Kirtiman came into the attack and the latter struck in the second over as the right hander was caught at midwicket by Ahmad. The next ball the number 3 was palpably lbw. The number 4 kept out the hat-trick ball. St. Albans struggled to accelerate as Richard and Kirtiman kept things tight and Richard had the number 4 caught by me as he top edged an attempted pull. The left handed opener had played a disciplined innings but did not really have the power to hurt us. When he reached 36 he hit the ball to Urshan at square leg to give Osman his first wicket. Soon after that I stumped the number 5 off the bowling of Sakeeb and Osman then had the number 6 lbw St. Albans rallied as their sixth wicket patr added 20 but the asking rate was now 10 an over. Urshan then bowled the number 7 for 17 and the next ball Rehan ran out the new batsman with a direct hit from mid on. Urshan then took a catch off his own bowling. James took the final wicket when I gathered a thick outside edge and St. Albans were then out for 131 in the last of their 35 overs. It was a good win against friendly opposition.
Richard Hillman