The 1st XI travelled away to Loddington, looking to build on their win in the first round of the season. The Loddington skipper won the toss and elected to bowl, on what looked like a very flat track. Despite losing Arkanath (5) early, Horton started to build a platform with Parmar (46) and Mowat going well. The score reached 76 before Karan was lbw. James Watson (24) partnered Mowat, who was accruing runs all around the ground in a busy innings. Mowat made an excellent 69, before he was run out. The Horton innings stalled somewhat, with Fin Moffat (24) providing some ballast in a sensible knock to keep the board ticking over. The old heads of Knibbs (28* from 24) and Chandracant (26* from 20) lead the sprint finish, with Horton posting 253-7 from their 50.

The Loddington response got off to a flier, with the overseas and his partner racing to 48-0 from 5 overs. Anvit Arkanath (13-5-35-2) provided the breakthrough, getting the overseas to a superb catch from Mowat. His spin twin, Karan Parmar (13-3-62-4) then got into his work and the Horton squeeze came into affect. The score became 123/4 then suddenly 123/5 after an outstanding moment from Harry Mowat. Fielding at cover point, a one handed pick up, turn and direct hit, off-balance ran out the Loddington batsmen, winning the Play of the Day. Horton had brought the game under control, with the slow bowlers rotating at one end and captain Will Smith (11-0-42-1) operating at the other. Loddington would pull up the drawbridge, with 52 needed from 9 overs and start the block out. Despite their best efforts, Horton couldn’t get the final two wickets and Loddington finished on 215/8. Horton left the ground with 15 points.

2nd XI vs. Irchester CC 1st XI

The 2nd XI welcomed Irchester 1st XI to Denton road for our second league game of the season. Horton won the toss and we decided to have a bat. Joe Maw was quickly into his stride hitting some majestic boundaries in a fluent and classy knock of 39 at a run a ball. Unfortunately, on 39 Joe missed timed a drive and was well caught at cover. There were useful contributions from Craig Reilly (25), Steve Finch (20), Amos Awaghade (17), Harvey Banks & Katie Fidler (both 16).

We set about defending 177 in fine style with Joe Maw producing a brilliant direct hit run out as wicket keeper. Steve Finch opened up from the Denton Road end and showed all his class and experience securing incredible figures of 10-5-6-3. James Hawksworth also produced a fine bowling spell and bowled his 10 overs on the trot taking 2-38 or controlled stump to stump bowling. Having reduced Irchester to 30-4 they got a few partnerships in the middle/lower order and we couldn’t quite get the last wicket to secure the victory. We ended up getting Irchester 9 wickets down, agonisingly losing by 1 wicket. In our post match de-brief we as a collective group felt that we were 20-25 runs light, but it was a fantastic effort by all the team and there was so much to take from the game moving forward into our next game against Kettering 3rds this coming Saturday looking to get back to winning ways.

My highlight of the day – Katie Fidler and Tom Hodgkinson both putting their hands up and offering to bowl with 13 runs required to win and 1 wicket required by us to win. Huge credit to them both for wanting to bowl in a very tense and pressured stage of the game. This showed great character from them both.

3rd XI vs. Weekley and Warkton CC 3rd XI

For our first game of the season at the Bozeadrome HHCC welcomed a Weekly and Warkton team with a number of very experienced players. Having won the toss Horton bowled first, with Kev Taylor bowling with his usual tight lines (dismissing all thoughts of Luton Town FC’s possible relegation), while Elliot Holmes came up the hill and disconcerted the batters with his pace. In the 6th over Elliot was rewarded with the first wicket to leave the opposition 16-1. The ball was doing plenty, rising off a length, but Payne and Walton showed their accumulated years of batting experience and dug in, taking the total to around 100 after 25 overs. After some decent overs from Vaaman and Vinnie, it was a spell of 33-2 from 7 overs by Harry Street that made the breakthrough and saw off Payne (59) and Walton (25). At that point we had hopes of ripping through the rest, but two more senior players helped get Weekly up to a final total of 184, even though Ian Street and Elliot took another 3 wickets between them.

After tea (and commiserations to Kev on the Luton result) Horton set about their reply. Karl Peasnall opened the bowling and showed why he’s a regular in the County over 60s, dismissing both openers cheaply to leave us 20-2. A good fight back then occurred with Rob FA and Jeremy J putting on 50 for the next wicket. Rob was desperately unlucky with a dismissal that trickled into the stumps off his pads and glove, then Vaaman was also unlucky in top-edging directly into the keeper’s gloves. Chris Archer then skilfully took on the Weekly bowlers and began to move the scoreboard forwards, but it always looked like the target was just beyond us. And so it proved, as when the Street duo batted out the last few overs to get the third batting point, we finished 28 runs short.

On another day this was a team we could have beaten but luck seemed against us this week: we had a couple of drops, and several hard catching opportunities, while Weekly’s catches were relatively easy. But we were never out of the game, and there was much to praise (fine cover fielding from Fred and boundary riding from Vinnie, a good 3s debut for JJ, solid bowling all round). We go again next week.

4th XI vs. S&L Corby CC 4th XI

Two years ago, a certain set of twins opened the batting for the Legends, and for the opening match of the season, we decided to run that experiment again. Like the Manhattan Project or the Hydron Collider, the experiment was a success with the Gallagher twins doing a fantastic job on a very difficult wicket seeing off S& L's opening bowlers. Henry's wicket brought Abhinav Kulur to the crease and both him and William Gallagher kept putting away the bad balls and defended the ones that were rolling on the wicket. As the innings progressed, both reached their 50s in the 30th over, with William carrying his bat for a wonderful 73 and Abhinav holing out on 51. Sandeep Patel and Harry Farbone added some quick runs and Horton finished the afternoon on 184 for 3 - an excellent batting performance.

With such a stellar batting performance it would be a hard act to follow for the bowlers but Harry Farbone had made other plans and decided that he would take 5 wickets in 23 balls - which is exactly what he did - and all of them clean bowled. Bowling in tandem with Alex Monk they had dismantled the S&L Corby batting finishing their spells with the opposition 31 for 7. Henry Gallagher mopped up the tail and the Legends won their first game of the season in convincing style.

The old boys in the team Nick, Paul W and Paul D spent their match subs umpiring and buying drinks - which is always the plan to let the youth do all the work - which they did. A big shout out to the Horton Junior section, who are churning these players out, and to all of the juniors who have been training over the winter - it shows!!