HERTFORD CRICKET CLUB

The friendly with County Hall on Sunday ended in a draw after a typical up and down game of cricket.

Both innings started unsteadily were sustained by a big middle order partnership and then subsided somewhat.

Batting first Hertford lost Eric Riddle early but Richard Eaton guided them to three figures with an innings of 48, however with the score on 111 half the side were out. Then Hemantha Abeywickrema joined his son Ashan and the pair added 90 runs off 15 overs. Hemantha was stumped immediately after reaching his 50 with the total on 201. Only 4 more runs were added as the lower order subsided. Ashan also reached 50 and the bowling honours went to Tom Barnaby with 5 for 35.

County Hall started their reply very slowly and soon lost wickets. At 51 for 4 with only about 24 overs left victory looked a long way off. However Szemiako had other ideas. In a 50 minute inning he struck three sixes and six other boundaries in an inning of 62. He was given good support by Schlaepfer as the pair put on 96. The rather surprisingly Szemiako gave a gentle catch to Eric Riddle off Roger Kent and this precipitated a collapse as three more wickets fell in successive overs, two to Bradley Dawson and one to Kent – an excellent catch at backward square by Bradley. However another father and son pair then saved the day for County Hall, Phillip and Ryan Stevenson batting out the last seven overs for the draw.

Scorecard