Great first up win against local rivals

For our first game of the season Sacha won the toss and chose to bowl. Our thinking was that if we could get Will Burridge out early then we could keep their total down. Mingus and Alfie opened the bowling and bowled really tightly. Burridge couldn’t get anything away and we kept their run-rate to a crawl. But eventually they played their way in and started scoring fluently. Noah Basden finally got the breakthrough when Will Burridge skied one and Rory took the catch well.

We figured out early that the brand new wicket (first to be prepared by our great new groundman Joe) was playing true, but also suiting the spinners, so we got them on early. Danny got their other opener when he induced a false stroke, then a sensational direct hit from Jay at point ran out Alex Dorman.

At that point, our new recruit Rory Walter took over. Brought on when Sacha decided to stick with spinners, he was on a hat-trick at one stage and finished off with a superb stumping from Ed Boyd to seal his 5-for. North London limped to 114-9.

With the April evening creating a challenge our batsmen decided to waste no time. An unfortunate early misunderstanding saw Jay run out without scoring, but Linus and Sacha settled into their work and played some great cricket shots to get to the total in 13.3 overs. Linus finished on 61* (hitting 4 fours and 2 sixes in one over) and Sacha finished on 48*.

A great start for our season. Next up, Primrose Hill in the Cup. I think we were all agreed that despite a really great all-round team effort, played with great spirit and camaraderie, Rory’s 5-12 made him our man of the match.