National village cup
The road to Lords has begun!
Northchurch began our 2016 National village cup campaign at home to Botany Bay a Premiership club.
Botany bay won the toss & elected to bat on a great looking pitch. Northchurch's opening Bowlers Ollie Johnson & Lee Johnson started well & kept things tight early on but some decent shots from Botany bays highly rated opener Kasey Harris kept the board ticking over. Eventually after 5 tight overs Lee Johnson made the breakthrough & picked up the Bay opener Muschamp for 7. In walked Shah batting at 3.
The 2nd wicket partnership has just started to get going when Mark Hobley got one to bounce on Harris & he was grabbed at backward point by skipper Button. The dangerous Harris had gone for 32. This brought Bay skipper Chris Marching to the middle briefly before Hobley had him caught behind well by Matt Suckling for just 4.
Hobley was soon at it again taking out the Bay no 5's middle pole for just 3. Ncc were on top & the game had swayed in their favor. Hobley finished with figures of 9 overs, 3 for 32 showing real class with the ball.
Shah was batting well at 3 & looked the only real Danger. Some excellent bowling from Calum Lindsay & Dave Perace kept the pressure on Bay & Calum was unlucky not to pick up Shah as he twice had him dropped in the deep on 46 & 48. NCC again dropped him on 72 & were kicking themselves when he finally fell for 96.
Lee Johnson came back & bowled well at the death to end with 3 wickets & Botany Bay finished on 191 from 40 overs.
In reply Northchurch started solidly with a steady opening stand of 40 between Dave Pearce 19 & Matt Suckling 18. George Liveing looked good again before being stumped for 26 & the normal NCC run machine Hobbers fell for just 8. In walks Theo Gayton who batted with real class & in a brilliant Partnership with Tom Calder 41* saw NCC home with 4 balls to Spare. Theo's 62* just oozed class with 4 straight 6's & excellent running between the wickets Northchurch's victory was in safe hands.
A long way to go to Lords yet but it has been whispered a few times at the club since Sundays famous victory!