HHCC – 2nd XI – Match Report vs Old CC 2nd XI – Match 1 – 26/04/26

The 2’s began their 2026 Campaign with a home game against Old 2’s at the stunning Denton road. On a gorgeous sunny April day the Horton ground looked an absolute picture.

Having lost the toss we were asked to bat first.

We all welcomed our two young debutants to the ranks. Oscar Herbert and Krish Sainath were included in our side, both aged only 13 (Oscar being 10 months or so older than Krish).

Finn Herrington and Harvey Cooke opened the batting and gave us a solid start putting on 39 for the first week before we lost Finn for 11 in the 10th over. Abhinav Kulur joined Harvey and started well stroking a well timed boundary, unfortunately we lost AB for 5 when he was well caught in the gully with the score on 62 after 15 overs.

This brought Vignesh Sudhakar to the crease to join Harvey.

At the beginning of the game I asked for the team to take responsibility and not to leave it to others. If your in, go big. It was so pleasing to see Harvey and Viggy do exactly that. They put on a wonderful unbroken partnership of 168 for the 2nd wicket.
Harvey played beautifully and combined good shot selection with some eye catching boundaries and some good running between the wickets in hot conditions. Harvey ended up registering his first Horton 2’s hundred, but he wasn’t finished at that, he continued and ended up scoring an excellent 131 not out (18 x 4’s).

Viggy more than played his part in the partnership, scoring 74 not out (9 x 4’s) combining good shot selection with some very classy and eye catching stroke making and some sensible game management.

We finished our 45 overs on 230 for 2.

Setting about trying to defend 230 we opened the bowling with veteran Kevin Taylor and Amos Awaghade. Both Kev and Amos bowled incredibly well, combining very accurate line and length bowling with enough movement to cause problems for the batters. Both Kev and Amos certainly set the tone with the balls and we took regular wickets throughout the first 20 overs.

Kev bowled his 10 overs on the bounce and picked up a deserved 4 wickets (10-0-42-4), Amos picking up 1 wicket (but deserving more) from his 7 economical and threatening overs (7-1-15-1).

In the 16th over we introduced the first of our young 13 year old leg spinners Krish Sainath into the bowling attack in his 2’s debut. Krish bowled really well on debut, combining good flight and extracting regular spin out of the surface. Krish could quite easily have picked up a couple of wickets on another day but bowled without luck, he bowled his 5 overs economically and finished with the really good figures of
of (5-0-22-0).

In the 21st over Elliot Cantrell was brought into the attack to bowl his off spin. Elliot also bowled good lines and lengths and found enough movement to be threatening to all the batters. He got the ball up above the eye line and caused problems for all the batters he bowled at. Elliot picked up 4 wickets including a wonderful caught and bowled where he dived like a salmon!).
7.3-0-31-4).

In the 24th over we brought our 2nd young 13 year old leg spinner Oscar Herbert into the attack in his debut game for the 2’s. Oscar settled very quickly into the attack and bowled a very consistent line and length and used clever flight whilst bowling at the perfect pace. He managed to extract enough turn out of the surface to cause problems and caused deception on a couple of occasions with two big spinning googlies. Oscar picked up 1 wicket and could quite easily have had 2 or 3 on another day.

Oscar’s first 2’s wicket was st G.Herbert b O.Herbert !. He finished with really good figures for his debut game of 5-0-17-1.

Our fielding was outstanding throughout the whole 35 overs we were in the field. We caught superbly, chased everything down, backed each other up. We created a real energy and buzz in the field which was really pleasing to see.

https://hortonhousecc.play-cricket.com/website/results/7348704

Skipper and veteran Gary Herbert found himself behind the stumps again and managed to claim 5 dismissals (3 catches and 2 stumpings).
We ended up bowling Old out for 127 in the 35th over.

It was an outstanding start by the 2’s in every department and has really set the standard and the bench mark that we want to stick to throughout the whole season. Every single player contributed to the win and everyone took their opportunity which was so pleasing to see.

A special mention to Old’s skipper Andy Hayward who showed that the spirit of cricket still remains by walking when he was caught behind with the keeper stood up with the finest of edges which would have been impossible for the umpire to hear or to see any obvious deviation. This was a heart warming piece of Cricket so big respect to Andy for this act of honesty.
We move onto next week looking to maintain the standards we have set with a fixture away against ON’s 4th team.