1st XI secures promotion with brilliant win

Highlights: Ollie Johnson four for 29, Steven McGiffin 85*

Full scorecard here

With word from the groundsman that, after a month’s worth of rain falling on the Meadow mid-week, there was a little softness just under the surface of a good looking pitch, Northchurch skipper Tom Vila elected to bowl first upon winning the toss.

As a team packed with three spinners that prefers to work with runs on the board, Redbourn were happy to have a bat. They would have been less happy when, 20 overs into the match, they found themselves 40 for four.

Ollie Johnson found some early seam movement to claim the scalp of opener Pritchard, caught behind by Suckling for a golden duck off the fourth ball of the game. Hard hitting Ed Hales gave an early reminder of his class with a lovely straight drive off Vila but was justifiably livid with himself after giving it away and playing across the line to Johnson a few very tight overs later.

At 17 for two, Yorath and Naismith came together to consolidate but focussed too hard on defence and managed a partnership of just nine in 48 balls before Fidler, replacing OJ at the rec end, found the edge to send Yorath packing for three.

Redbourn captain, Dan Roe, looked intent to move the score along but could only accumulate four before edging Hobley to Suckling. Then, with the hardness coming out of the ball, spin twins Patel and ‘Uncle Buck’ Barry came on to race through 20 overs.

Patel bowled with excellent control to an offside field and was unlucky to finish with just one victim, Alex Salter, bowled for 11 after occupying the crease for 30 balls. Barry was brilliant to go for just 29 in ten overs through the middle of the innings and deserved to be in the wickets.

Naismith, who made the only contribution of note, reached his fifty during Redbourn’s best stand, which he shared with number seven, Arnold. From a precarious 77 for five, they managed to move the score along to 129, before looking to put the foot down in the last 6 overs. When the big shots did come, OJ, returning at the death, was equal to the task and ended the partnership with a straight one.

Redbourn’s long batting line up was unable to fire at the back end and the innings fizzled as the experienced Ben Roe quickly became OJ’s eighth victim in two weeks. Dean Flynn came and went after he was called back for an ill-judged second by Naismith when the ball was already in the hands of the rocket-armed Bexon.

With 72 to his name and having already hit a big six, Naismith’s plans to play some more shots were undone by a nifty piece of footwork from Johnson in his follow through. Sticking out his size 25 right boot to stop a straight drive, the ball deflected onto the stumps to leave the set batsman stranded and run out backing up.

When last man Cann was castled by Vila for a single, Redbourn’s 165 felt under par. The loss of wickets, after batsmen had absorbed a lot of dot balls to get themselves in but then failed to capitalise, had cost them. They would need to bowl very well on a pitch which looked to be flattening out to keep alive their own hopes of promotion.

Northchurch’s reply got off to a brisk start, with Liveing and Bexon both finding the boundary early to take 27 from the first four overs. However, the momentum shifted when the home team lost three wickets for 10 runs during a dramatic 20 balls.

Liveing was first to go, edging behind a straight onner from off Spinner Arnold who had replaced opener Flynn after just two overs. Suckling, filling a Garraway shaped hole at number three, was undone by a good Yorker from Cann, an over before Arnold claimed his second by trapping a pulling Bexon LBW with a short ball that stayed low.

At 36 for three, Northchurch needed a big partnership from their two best batsmen to reclaim the initiative. McGiffin and Hobley did not disappoint.

Redbourn rotated their spinners, who bowled some threatening deliveries, but could not find the consistency to match Northchurch for dot balls and contain the batsmen. McGiffin was particularly focused and looked like a man with more work to do when he raised his bat to acknowledge the cheers for his sixth league half century of the year.

With the partnership worth 65, regular opening bowler Moyle was introduced to the attack and found success immediately, with just enough movement to force Hobley to play on. The visitors would still have felt in the game with the finisher gone and sixty left on the board to play with. However, McGiffin would have Calum Lindsay for company in a second consecutive fifty partnership that would all but seal the win.

There were muted celebrations from Redbourn when Lindsay was bowled with a dozen still required and Buck Barry swaggered to the crease to knock off the runs with 10 overs and five wickets to spare. McGiffin's 85* not out, which took him to within 150 of recording 1000 league runs for the season, was surely one of the most important innings of the year.

Although a comfortable win on paper, there were several intriguing shifts in momentum during the match and the outcome was never really certain until deep in the Northchurch chase, when the opposition’s body language flattened out as rapidly as the pitch.

The win assures a very well deserved promotion to Division Two for Northchurch but the players will delay celebrations until the league title is secured.