Stand in skipper George Liveing (pictured admiring his empire) maintained a 100 per cent winning record in charge by guiding the 1st XI to a third victory in a row over Hertford 2nd XI. At the start of the day, both sides were in second place in the league table, both on 82 points looking to make a statement in the hunt for their unbeaten quarry, Redbourn.

Batting first, Northchurch made a cautious start against some characteristically accurate Hertford seamers, on a pitch offering some assistance to the bowler. Liveing, joined by Henry Bexon, promoted up the order to cover for a mechanically challenged Barry Barry the 2nd, was first to fall, unluckily bowled round his legs by Broxbourne turncoat Tony Rhodes. Bexon returned to the pavilion for a promising 19shortly after, brining together the mouth-watering partnership of Terminator Gayton and Steve McGiffin, who had already got busy settling himself in.

Having seen off the openers, both of whom bowled out economically to restrict Chuch to 70 for 2 after 20 overs, Gayton was trapped LBW to the wily inswing of veteran first change man Chris Thompson. After that, wickets fell from one end at regular intervals, while Steve kept the scoreboard ticking over and punished the bad balls when offered. The only notable support came from Barry 'grease monkey' Barry who got caught in two minds and dinked up a catch to mid wicket after making a positive 21. No cause for alarm soon turned into cause for alarm as the home side's strong middle order was picked off by off spinner Folland, enjoying some success with a change of ends.

With Steve approaching 100, it looked liked he might end up running out of partners and Hertford sniffed an opportunity to knock Northchuch over for 170. Chris Pearson then offered some support to Steve who reached his hundred in the 42nd over. What happened next was spectacular to watch and shifted the momentum away from the buoyant visitors. McGiffin cut loose, targeting the spinners and the short boundary to blast 9 sixes to finish on 154*, Chris providing an excellent foil in a 9th wicket partner of 65 that meant Northchurch could go into tea with 240 to defend.

Hertford's response began in positive style with the left hand, right hand combination affecting the bowlers' lines and offering scoring opportunities. However, with that came chances for wickets but OJ was unlucky to see three edged deliveries navigate the cordon safely. Breakthrough came with 34 on the board as Steve found some movement to hit the top of off. OJ bowled the number three two overs later, clearly deciding to ignore his fielders and do all the work by himself. Pearson (5-0-22-0), replacing Steve at the pavilion end in search of wickets, was characteristically aggressive, only to see a catch go down after he had induced an edge. It looked like it might be a costly opportunity to miss, however, with slow men JB (10-2-23-2) and Romit Patel (10-0-41-1) joining the attack, Church were able to build some pressure and scoring dried up. This led to three run outs and a flurry of catches chipped to ring fielders as Hertford lost 5 wickets for 55 runs. A ninth wicket partnership of 22 could only steer them towards batting bonus points and the inevitable happened when Steve Returned to knock over the tail.

Thirty points saw the boys in black and amber pull away from Hertford in the league standings and keep in form Redbourn in the cross hairs. They will make the trip to the common in two weeks time to attempt to repeat last year's win to end Redbourn's winning run to the start of the season. Before that they must travel to meet the relegated Old Finchleians next week.