OMT 1stXI 168 all out 41.3 overs (A Shelley 54, A Hill 6 for 42)
Windsor 2nd XI 171 for 5 53.4 overs (P Huggins 52, A Hill 45*)
Windsor 2nd XI finally started their league season last Saturday with a trip to Rickmansworth to play Old Merchants Taylor. With the home side (originally) missing influential captain Dave Katz and having lost a couple of players, it was a new-look side that Windsor faced to that off previous seasons. Upon winning the toss, OMT decided to bat first on what would look and prove to be a great track.
OMT openers looked to be positive from the word go and both Edge and Condon, the Windsor opening bowlers, were unlucky to see a number of boundaries hit from there bowling. Whilst it was Condon that was regularly whistling balls past the bat, Edge took the first wicket of McCabe through a well taken catch at mid-off by Noble. Shelley continued to attack for OMT and soon brought up his 50. After 19 overs, OMT sat at 89 for 1 and were flying. Then a stroke of fortune turned the game dramatically as Hill had Shelley caught down the legside by keeper Care, the result of which was a start of a dramatic collapse. With leg-spinner Kellard bamboozling them at the one end, the OMT batsmen had no let up from the pressure Hill started to exert from his bowling removing a solid looking number 3 with a smart in-swinging delivery. Hill and Kellard worked in tandem and ripped out the OMT middle order. Hill then capped a fine spell with a hat-trick over two overs, taking his 4th, 5th and 6th wickets in the process. In between the last two wickets came a Kellard over that removed another batter bowled around his legs. With the last man at the crease OMT had crashed from 89 for 1 to 119 for 9 over the space of 8 overs. Some pride was restored though through some odorant batting by Richards and Booth, which managed to push OMT along to a total of 168 all out when Edge removed the final wicket. Hill was the pick of the Windsor bowlers with 6 for 42, but a good team effort by all the bowlers had put Windsor into that position.
With 58 overs to knock the runs off, Windsor set out seemingly looking to use up all the overs they had at hand. The run rate was at around 2 runs per over throughout the first 25 overs and when Noble was out for 11 in the 27th over, Windsor suddenly needed 4 an over to reach the target. Huggins passed a good 50, maintaining his early season form, but the wise and guile of Neil Richards was causing Windsor no end of problems. Indeed, he duly removed Gould, Chana and Gould in a short space of time and was conceding at around 1 run per over. When skipper Davis reached the crease, there was little choice but to up the scoring rate and heavy hitting soon upped the scoring rate. With the loss of the next wicket, Davis began to play the support role as Hill’s dream day continued as he began to plunder runs as well as wickets. With an aggressive flourish, Hill was brutal with any width he was offered and hit one magnificent six back over the previously unshakeable Richards’ head. When Hill hit the final boundary, Windsor had won with 20 balls to spare. Hill was not out 45 and Davis not out 26.
Windsor had battled hard for a good win in their first league outing against one of the many first teams in the division. The side has the makings of a good team and need to just be more conscious of not getting bogged down on run rates when batting and have that extra killer instinct to finish off an oppositions tail having worked so hard to remove the top order batters. On the whole though, this was an excellent win. This Saturday (16th) Windsor 2’s is at home to Chesham 2’s.