Bad weather halts Northchurch 2s progress

Northchurch 2's excellent start to the new season was halted on Saturday, as bad weather meant no result was able to be forced in their home clash vs Offley and Stopsley. The captains shook hands as the rain came down just eight overs into Northchurch's reply, as the teams shared ten points each from the game.

The weather for the majority of the afternoon was far better than first feared, with Offley & Stopsley essentially playing all of their innings after being sent into bat at the toss. A period of around 40 minutes kept the players off the field soon after the start of play, meaning a reduced game of 44 overs per side was put into action.

However as Northchurch looked to chase down the score of 195 set by the opposition, the rain quickly put an end to proceedings with the increasing bad weather and standing water on the pitch meaning the game had to be abandoned.

Having been put into bat, Offley's final total was a measure of how tight the Northchurch bowlers were able to keep things. There were a few periods in the innings where they found things tough, and that was largely down to a score of 74* from Ali Humza. His innings was part of a rebuilding period between him and the captain Luke Munt, who scored 44 before Mike James took a brilliant catch off the bowling of Ben Pyne.

Offley had been three wickets down for just 63, but that partnership between Humza and Munt was extremely crucial to getting them up to a respectful total, after Harry Chapman and Matt Dawson took the wickets of their opening three batsman.

The first wicket to fall was that of Mo Chaudry, who after struggling to get Fidler away in the opening overs, fell to Chapman for 11 as he edged behind to first slip where Steve Bateman took the catch. Dawson meanwhile removed the other opener, Steve Owen, LBW for 21 before getting Daniel Goord to edge behind to Mick Debenham for a score of 13.

Northchurch had Offley under pressure at this point but they recovered well, losing just one more wicket in their 44 overs, as they made up for their slow run rate throughout the innings with some quicker scoring towards the death.

Fidler's side would have been confident of chasing that score within the allotted overs, having chased down 184 and 221 in their opening two games. Any plans to win the game were abruptly ended by the rain though, as the match finished with Northchurch 27 for 1 in reply. The only wicket to fall was that of Chapman who was caught off the bowling of Steve Denton.

Next up for the second XI is a trip to Radlett to play their fourth XI next Saturday as Northchurch go in search of continuing their unbeaten start to the season.