An absolute belter greeted the captains when they met for the toss on Saturday, captain Will Knibbs won the flip and elected to chase. Weekley’s openers made good use of the deck and barely offered a chance as they breezed their way to 86. Another trademark, leg stump, half volley from Knibbs was clipped to the boundary rider – Harvey Cooke, who put his Monday Night attendance into great effect and ran out the Weekley batter with a direct hit from the boundary. Rory Monk, on debut, troubled the visitors – bowling 6-0-19-0 in his first spell, to bring down the rate. Parmar (2-41) took a fine caught and bowled, then caught the overseas lbw to grab his brace. However, that was pretty much it for chances and Weekley posted 260-3 from their fifty overs.

Horton got off to a nightmare start, losing both openers quickly to leave them 9-2. A slight resurrection got us to 60-4, with Harry Mowat calmly accumulating runs. He found support with Adhikari (21), putting on 75 for the sixth wicket. The score was 202 when Harry bought up his maiden ton for The House, in the finest knock of the season for the 1st XI. He was finally caught for 110, looking to ease the pressure from the scoreboard. Skipper Will Knibbs was delivering a captain’s knock as Horton looked to pull off the unlikely chase, supported by Harvey Cooke (10*). With the target creeping up to 25 from 2 overs, the Weekley death bowling was superb. The House fell just short on 247-9 with Knibbs 41*, in a valiant effort.

2nd XI vs. Haddon CC 2nd XI

The 2’s travelled to play Haddon 2’s in the 21st week of our 2025 campaign. Having lost the toss we were asked to bowl first. The energy, effort, enthusiasm from all the team in the field was outstanding and everyone of us backed up the bowlers, who again all bowled extremely well. The pick of our bowlers was Tom Hodgkinson who returned the outstanding figures of (9-2-18-5), his second 5 wicket hall of the 2025 season. Tom bowled superbly and extracted some significant turn from the pitch, bowling his off spin. There were also wickets for Elliot Holmes (1) who bowled with pace in his opening spell, Amos Awaghade (1) and Vaman Mallipedda (2). We managed to bowl Haddon 2’s out for 138 in 45 overs.

Fred Jeyes and Steve Finch opened the innings for us on our pursuit of chasing down 138. Both batted really well against the new ball and put on an impressive 57 run opening partnership, before the lost Fred for 14. Steve carried on in his merry way and showed all his experience and knowledge compiling a match winning 70 off 107 balls with 7 x 4’s. There was also a really impressive innings from Abhinav Kulur who scored a run a ball 30 at a really important time of our run chase when the pressure was on and the required rate was climbing. We go across the line after 41 overs, losing 4 wickets.

After 21 completed weeks of the 2025 season, the 2’s have now won 15, lost 5, and had one cancelled, and we currently sit 3rd in the league 96 points in front of the team in 4th place with 1 game to play next week at the home of Cricket against ON’s.

For the record, it was extremely pleasing to have secured our 15th win of the season, which is the most wins in a season for the 2’s for 25yrs years since play cricket began ?. So proud of all the players. #peacocks

3rd XI vs. Bold Dragoon CC 2nd XI

For the final game of the season we welcomed Bold to the Bozeadrome. With our 4th placed position guaranteed there was a definite ‘end of season’ feel, but Bold needed a win to guarantee that they could not be relegated, so a serious game of cricket ensued. Having won the toss Horton put the opposition into bat, despite the Bold skipper making a request that we bat first. Clearly, the Bozeat pitch was already in their heads (cue Cranberries soundtrack) and James and Harry made good use of their wariness, beating the bat frequently and keeping the runs down. Harry made the breakthrough in the 6th over with a classic caught behind dismissal – 15-1. The second opener was then dismissed in similar fashion, caught at slip by the skipper off the bowling of 3rd team debutant Andrew Howkins – 50-2. In the absence of Street senior it was over to a possible heir to his spinning throne, Rob, to extract maximum turn from the Bozeadrome pitch. In a great spell of bowling his figures of 10 overs, 2 for 37, belied the number of wicket-taking deliveries he bowled. At the other end Kev was his usual accurate self, picking up another couple of scalps. At 100-5 it looked as if Bold might be dismissed for c.130/40 but some strong hitting by Blatch got them up to 176-7.

This was a challenging target on a rather tired, end of season, wicket and at 4-2 Bold were threatening to run through Horton and easily take home the 20 points. However, Andy B (18), John (26), and James (17) all showed that runs were possible (unlike the 4 ducks elsewhere…). But it was the young pair of Harry and Alfie that showed the most fight and started to worry with the opposition as the runs started to add up. Of particular note was Alfie’s 43 with a couple of fine 6s. However, when the last wicket fell in the 39th over, Horton were 43 short of the target.

Finishing 4th after being promoted represents a fine achievement for the 3s and at times we were definitely in the promotion hunt. Many thanks to everyone that turned out for the 3s this year – winter well!

4th XI vs. Overstone Park CC 4th XI
Overstone Park conceded. Horton House 4th XI are promoted.