Hertford 2nd XI Lose by 6 Wickets to Bushey

Captain Chandler, reinstated after rehab on a lightly-bruised leg lost the toss and was put in on a pitch that looked surprisingly inoffensive.

Chandler of course knows better than most how deceiving appearances can be, and of course found the pitch doing bits and pieces as early as the second over. Unfortunately, this translated into the loss of both openers with only 16 on the board – luckily Golder was on hand to firmly drop anchor and start a vigil at the crease which would last well over half the innings – some say he is still blocking to this very day.

With the score on 34 and Hertford just starting to tick along nicely, the amazingly spherical Bushey keeper took a great grab to dismiss Max Lawrance. This brought Ollie Ray to the crease who was the only man to rotate the strike with confidence for Hertford all day and together him and Golder moved the 2’s into the very promising situation of 86-3. However, after this the wheels came off…

Golder was pried from the crease firstly after a solid, battling 22 – and then 5 Hertford batsman followed for the addition of only 12 extra runs, the last of which was the prized wicket of Ray who mistakenly thought he was Usain Bolt before being stranded short of his ground trying to make an improbable run.

Before Hertford completely collapsed, there was time for Rhodes to skip down the wicket and slog a welcomed six but shortly after that the Hertford innings ended in the last over for 117.

It wasn’t all bad though, Bushey probably provided the finest tea of 2019 so far but unfortunately that may have also played its part in a tardy start by the Hertford opening bowlers. As Bushey raced to 35-0 captain Chandler made changes and it was only the introduction of Lawrance that brought about a wicket and applied any form of pressure. Lawrance bowled well from one end while Thompson, Osborn and Golder rotated at the other.

Osborn looked dangerous and took 2 wickets to leave Bushey 70-3 and Hertford hoped Bushey would emulate their own collapse earlier in the day. However no bowlers, other than Lawrance who finished with solid figures of 10-3-21-1, where able to provide the same level of control. Golder replaced Lawrance and bowled well, taking a wicket but sadly Hertford just didn’t have enough runs to play with and Bushey managed overhaul the total in the 28th over only 4 down.

All is not lost for Hertford who can easily fly up what is a very close league with a couple of wins, the batsman will know that improvements still need to be made against spin on difficult wickets in order to put a decent total on the board for their bowlers to bowl at.