The Young Guns bring it home for Horton!

We arrived at a sunny and blowy Denton Road to play our second Sunday friendly of the season against a keen Bugbrooke side comprising all adult players mainly from divisions 10 & 12 but one or two who play in div 5.

We had a young side and were possibly a little light on the batting (or so I thought!) so agreed that Bugbrooke would bat first. We set an attacking field that included a couple of slips for our opening bowlers George Pitt and Tom Hilton. Both lads bowled an excellent length and got the new ball to swing away from the bat at pace with numerous plays and misses from one of the openers in particular and a couple of outside edges that did not go to hand. At 12 overs we had kept the score to a very respectable 32-0.

It was time for a change with pace at one end in the form of James Dadge and then Nik Patel bowling his spin variations at the other end. This brought immediate rewards with wickets falling in the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th overs! Clearly the result of a tight opening spell from our opening bowlers! Not for the first time a couple of batsmen found James' pace a little too hot to handle... Nik finished with 3-11 off his 4 overs and James finished with 2-17 from his 6 overs, including a wicket in his second spell at the death.

We also had spin from Vignesh who bowled well for 0-25 off his 6 overs and an excellent spell of seam bowling from Sam Mullaney who showed exemplary control in maintaining an off stump line against attacking batsmen. Dylan Martin got the rough job of bowling the last overs and did well to return figures of 2-32 which included the wicket of their captain who was bowled off the last ball of their innings for 48!

We took tea needing 142 to win and confident that if we played sensibly, this was a total within our reach.

Unfortunately Bugbrooke struck an early blow by bowling Tinu for 0 and so Finn Herrington joined Dan Hyde in a partnership of 14 to steady the ship a little. Dan had one swing too many and departed for 6 whilst Finn took time to assess the bowling and get himself in. Dylan came and went for 1 and then Nik Patel was given out LBW for 5 and we were 32-4 off 12 overs. Same scoring rate as Bugbrooke in their first 12 overs but a few more wickets down!

This led to Vignesh joining Finn for an excellent partnership of 65 which really laid the platform for our response. The lads needed to bat carefully but score when they could to keep the board ticking against tidy bowling. Finn retired with a maiden 50 with 8 fours in his fantastic innings in which he both left the ball well and then drove handsomely to score when the opportunity arose.

Vignesh then pushed on and had a further partnership of 27 with Tom Hilton who made 10. Vignesh also retired with 51 runs, another excellent knock featuring many of his trademark late cut shots and by then, the score was 141 so the job almost done.

It was left to James Dadge and Sam Mullaney to finish things off and get us over the line which they duly did and so we won by 5 wickets with a few balls to spare.

Everybody played their part in a really good game played in good spirits by both teams on an excellent wicket and outfield and it was a pleasure to captain the team. Special thanks to Geoff Dobson who umpired both innings and from both ends too and Simon Dadge for his help setting up and packing away.

Alan Pitt
HHCC Sunday Captain