The U14’s were presented with the County Trophy by Mark Ramprakash at Radlett CC last Friday evening.

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Saturday’s match at Balls Park has been cancelled. Sunday’s home fixture is still on.

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Another very successful cricket week on all fronts ! good cricket, good weather, good company and good involvement right across the club. The club team’s were unbeaten across the week with 2 wins, 2 draws and a tie !. The week had the distinction of having 3 sets of 3 brothers represented in Hertford sides. Monday saw Phil, Adam and Mark Carlson playing together, and yes it was noisy !!, Phil back briefly from Oz before his wedding in Ireland, and determined to enjoy the Hertford wicket again, and a rare but hopefully not the last appearance of Mark. The Orchard family fielded Jack, Tom and Dan in the Ware match and of course Tom and Dan seemed ever present all week. Finally, the Ray brothers Edward, Ollie and Will all turned out in the President’s match following a 3 line whip to help celebrate their mum’s ‘big’ birthday.

Another tradition of Cricket Week is at least one youngster has to play lots of matches and help himself to bucket loads of runs and/or wickets ! this year Tom Orchard stepped up, with scores of 79, 106 not out, 26 not out, 51 and 5 not out a cricket week average of 133.5 ! add to that 6 wickets for 121 runs across the week – both he and brother Dan look very promising cricketers.

Carlson brothers – scary

Tom Orchard following his century

Match details

Monday – Hertford 321 for 8 beat Southgate 320 for 5 (A Carlson 25 for 2, D Orchard 71 for 2, G Pavey 87 no, T Orchard 79, P Carlson 62 (off 20 balls !!))

Tuesday – Hertford 258 for 4 drew with Weekenders 169 for 9 (T Orchard 106 no, A Kildare 72, N Hillary 22 for 3, S Dawson 11 for 2, T Orchard 18 for 2)

Weds – Hertford 237 for 8 beat Ware 131 all out (M Ives 59, A Marnoch 36, J Orchard 30, C Ives 19 for 4, J Riddle 12 for 2)

Thursday – Hertford 304 for 8 tied with Steve Gale XI all out (W Ray 79, J Southgate 75, J Riddle 54, I Golder 43, S Greenal 41, S Ruskin 64 for 5, J Southgate 49 for 3, Gale 32 for 3, Chatfield 66 for 3)

Friday – President’s XI 301 for 3 drew with Hertford 295 for 8 (R Walters 110, S Davies 117, W Ray 106, A Jenkin 90, J Leather 41, Bergh 95 for 5, Brazil 20 for 2)

Huge thanks to everybody who played, supported and helped out – great week.

Hertford 4 v Berkhamsted 2 at home:

Berkhamsted won the toss and put Hertford in to bat. The decision was soon justified with early wickets and at 16/2 had Hertford in trouble. Eric Riddle combined with Chris Marques to rebuild and advance the score to 101 when Chris was caught for a very entertaining 57. Wickets fell steadily and only Riddle (35) and newcomer Tim Camp (20) put up much resistance. Hertford finished on 160 off 50 overs.

Berkhamsted came out swinging, scoring 20 off the skipper’s opening over! A good catch by Connor Ives took the wicket of Lewis in the 3rd over and Preedy was bowled by Ives in the 5th. The total had already reached 50 and Berkhamsted where positioned to reach 160 without any further risk. Opener C Debonaire went on to make 47 before being caught off the bowling of Dan Orchard. This was the last wicket to fall and Frey (76 n.o) and Wyatt (32 n.o) guided Berkhamsted to a convincing victory and an early finish.

A bad loss for HF4 but we can take heart from the good form of Eric Riddle and the promising bowling of the juniors Dan Orchard, Connor Ives and Rob Holman.

Next week we play away to Luton Town and Indians.

Hertford 4 v Reed 3 23/07/2016

Hot weather, a flat track and fast outfield all pointed to favourable batting conditions. Neither captain looked forward to fielding first in the heat and on winning the toss, skipper Dave Benham duly elected to bat. Openers Steve Page and Bharath Mohanmurthy got the innings off to a quick start with any bad deliveries dispatched to the boundary. Bharath (22) was the first wicket to fall caught behind off Graves. Sal Mohamed then combined with Steve to advance the score to 125 when Steve was also caught behind off Roberts for an excellent 67. Dave Spring and Sal added another 55 when Sal was another caught behind victim off Roberts. Dave was out bowled for 34 shortly after but Hertford were now building a formidable score. Eric Riddle looked in great form scoring 72 before being bowled by Hughes. Ollie Clarke (12) and Jack Timms (19) made useful contributions to reach 293 and declaration after 49 overs. Ian Roberts figures of 8 overs 3 for 18 were remarkable given the conditions.

Reed, to their credit, were undaunted by the task ahead of them and set about the run chase. Fynn was the first to fall, bowled Timms with the total on 34. Hughes was next, caught Orchard bowled Timms with the total at 44. Barker was caught Riddle bowled Orchard and at 70/3 Hertford were well on top but Robert Willoughby kept Reed in the game until eventually being bowled Pizzey for 66. Further wickets to Orchard and Pizzey had Reed 98/7 and only the most pessimistic of observers would not have expected Hertford to seal the victory in short time. Captain Mike Robertson and Josh Conley, however, had other ideas and hit the Hertord spinners to all corners of the ground. Reed’s exceptional batting had positioned themselves to eclipse the Hertford total and change in tactics was desperately needed. The pace of Sal Mohamed was the answer, who bowled Conley for 53 and then no 11 Roberts for 4 to win the game for Hertford with Reed on 284 and 2 overs remaining. Captain Robertson finished on a magnificent 94 not out. A fantastic display of power hitting rarely seen in this division.

Next game is at home to Berkhamsted.

Club Captain Steve Gale breaks club’s league batting record, following a fabulous cricket week at Balls Park

Skipper Gale won the toss against Bishop Stortford at home and had no hesitation in batting first on a decent wicket which may turn later in the day.

Gale and Jenkin started well against the experienced opening pair of Barrett and Smith. Gale was the aggressor with Jenkin playing the supporting role. Hertford reached 98 before the wicket of Jenkin bowled by the left arm spin of Queensland cricketer Kuhnemann. At lunch Hertford reached 117 for 1 off 38 over, a title behind the run rate but not a bad position. After the break Gale fell for 88, breaking his own 1st XI club record of league runs in a season. In 2014 record Gale set the current record of 851, he is currently sitting on 865 after 12 innings at an average of 96.11. With 5 league matches still to go the thousand is in sight !

Gus Joyce fell for a patient 19, Will Ray was caught at slip for 1 and Richard Leather falling cheaply as Hertford were struggling at 141 for 5. Further wickets of Will van Der Maat and James Leather left Hertford on 166 for 7. Scott Ruskin and Robbie Joseph then batted beautifully for the remaining 9 overs and added 49 crucial runs to finish up 215 for 7 off our allotted 60 overs.

With the wicket turning a touch, we believed we were still well in the game but once again had to start well. Bishops Stortford reached 61 before Hertford got the break through when Ruskin bowled Ramsden for 19. Hussain was stumped for a breezy 15 again of the bowling of Ruskin. at 8 for 2 and Hertford were still in the game. Chatfield joined Ballard at the crease and they both batted positively and beautifully taking the game away from Hertford with a 123 run partnership. Ruskin got another deserved wicket with the ball of the day to bowl Chatfield for 52. Ballard finished the innings 118 not out to take the 30 points back to Bishop Stortford.

Steve Gale commented ‘We didn’t bat well enough as a unit, we didn’t rotate the strike well enough and allowed the bowlers to settle in. We were completely out played by a strong side and we now have to bounce back strongly as Potters Bar. It’s the business end of the season now and this is why we play cricket. It will be exciting and I’m hoping for a much improved performance.’

Saturday 2nd July: St Albans 211-7 (53), Hertford III 185-8 (46)

With chances of rain throughout the day, St Albans won the toss and decided to bat. After a fast start a couple of quick wickets from Marnoch (1-36) and Carter slowed the rate. Some dropped chances allowed St Albans to build (Captains should lead by example), however timely wickets from Pizzey (2-47) and two handy run outsbrought the innings back in the balance. Richard O’Toole came in at 7 and with some good late order hitting managed to propel the score upwards of 200 with a well compiled 47 not out. At tea although we felt the score was gettable it may have been 20-30 over par.

Hertford set about the chase with caution, losing Jeff Hurrell (6) and Marnoch (3) in quick succession. Hugh and Frosty rebuilt the innings with some watchful batting combined with crisp strokeplay from Frost in particular. Unfortunately after a brief rain delay which cost Hertford an over, Hugh had to retire due to an injury. Ben Davis followed him back to the pavilion shortly after as did Frost after looking good for his 34. At 63-4 things weren’t looking good, however a partnership between Coddy and Shri got the innings going again, before Kumar walked past a straight ball from Telkman and was stumped. That brought Carter to the crease and the two put on a further 68, before Codd (46) was bowled. After Carter departed for 33 it was decided to hold on for the draw.

A good game that could have gone either way ended in a draw, next week Hertford take on Langleybury II away.

Saturday 9th July: Hertford III 200-9 (53), Langleybury II 203-2 (37.2)

On a relatively hard and flat wicket Cooper elected to bat, after the early loss of Nick Horton it was down to Hugh and Marnoch to build the innings. A mixture of good running and some big hitting from Hugh in particular took Hertford to the firsts drinks break. Marnoch (25) was unfortunately run out. From then on the next five Hertford batsmen all got in and past 20 but couldn’t go on and make that big contribution required, with the top score being 33. Ending on 200 we felt that may have been 20 short of what was required and it proved to be the case.

The Langleybury openers came out positively, punishing anything full and wide and raced to 50 for no loss after 5 overs. Cooper rang the changes, trying to slow the rate and grab us a wicket. Pizzey and Ollie Clarke managed to wrestle back some control and took a wicket a piece Pizzey finishing on (1-26) from his 9 overs and Clarke (1-25) from 7.2 overs having some respectability to their figures. Cooper continued to rotate but chances wouldn’t fall to hand and the fast start from the openers meant that the middle order could afford to consolidate.

A disappointing result, where perhaps Hertford were 20-40 short and needed to start well, next week we host Amptill Town who we beat in the return fixture and will be looking to do the double over them.

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Hatfield Hyde visited Ball’s Park to face an in-form Hertford 2ndXI this weekend whilst Hertford were out to avenge the early season ‘no-result’ against the same opposition. HH won the toss and rudely decided to have a bat:

As-per-normal, Dawson and Thompson opened up and Dawson quickly demonstrated what a new ball can do. HH-skipper Russell had his off-stump removed and placed about 2 yards behind the bowling crease, a couple of overs later and Griffith was given an identical treatment.

Of course anyone in Hatfield can tell you, that when one HH wicket falls; Aamir Malik walks in. Malik (complete with aviator glasses) didn’t hesitate in showing-off some of his trade mark slogs, first off the impressive Dawson, then off Thompson. Dawson didn’t like Malik taking advantage of his young-new-ball partner and sent down an out-swinger that took the edge, it flew to Ray at 2nd slip who after a juggle, claimed the catch. Boom-Boom Malik just stood there, maybe waiting for appropriate recognition for his abilities, or maybe because he thought golden-boy Will Ray had dropped it. The umpires sent him packing, the whole county knows a Ray don’t lie.

When Thompson had Dunklin well caught by Riddle, HH were struggling on 43-4. Sadly for Hertford the next 2 wickets cost nearly 120 runs. This was brought about by a mixture of bowling and an improvement in the batting. At 172-6, Whitton (77) departed and Hertford had a chance to get stuck into two new batsman. Ray had settled into a great spell and together with Carlson, and a return from Dawson, they finished-off the rest of the HH batting order.

Stand-out figures from Dawson (10-0-39-4) and Ray (11.4-0-37-4) and some great catching in the slips meant that HH innings closed in the 52nd over with 201 on the board.

Hertford sent out two gym-loving opening batsman to try to build a platform for what could be a potentially tricky chase. Ray and Riddle showed HH exactly what a pair of in-form-mesomorphs can do and added 58 for the first wicket. Of course none other than Boom-Boom-Malik was on-hand to break the partnership with his legendary quicker ball.

Ryan Stevenson, after being encouraged by Dave Williams to pursue his football career, made his way to the crease for the last time this season. Stevenson (20) and Ray (45) made good progress but when both came unstuck and Carlson (9) followed quickly, Hertford were in a spot of bother at 122-4. Skipper Linney and Pavey came together to add a reassuring partnership of 50 when the pressure was on. Linney (47) was the aggressor and managed to tame a difficult run-rate, however both fell within the space of a few balls and Golder completed an excellent day by chipping his best mate to mid-on.

174-7 didn’t look great, however Hertford were confident, Rahul Sharma and Cliff Cavener made-up what has to be the most capable 8 and 9 in the league and even when needing more than 6-an-over finished the game in classy style; Cavener 14 not out and Sharma 10 not out. Well batted!

Hertford 2’s now make-up part of the chasing-pack in Div.3A, another win and Hertford will be hot on the tails of the leading 3 teams. A special mention to Brad Dawson who continues to bowl brilliantly with the new ball, and as-ever he was backed-up by some excellent fielding which set the platform for the batsman to finish the job again.