West Herts victorious in five out of six cricket games

The Saracens Hertfordshire League supports 32 divisions with over 300 teams competing every week.

West Herts have sides in the premiership and divisions four, 13, 19, 23 and 25 respectively. In the premiership it was second plays third when Totteridge Milhillians visited Park Avenue.

In the first game of the season the Stags had come out victors by a staggering 269 runs but since then the visitors had been undefeated rising to second in the table and with Adam Rossington (Essex and Middlesex) and Owais Shah (England and Middlesex) in their ranks looked formidable opponents.

Predictably West Herts lost the toss and were inserted to bat. This made an unlikely ten out of ten reversals for the Stags. A one in a thousand probability.

The Stags' innings progressed steadily with most batsmen getting in but failing to go on to make a big score.

The left arm spin of Irish Saxena inhibited run making and although only taking one wicket his 20 overs only cost 68 runs with most of those coming in a flourish at the end of the innings.

A final score of 264-8 was competitive but well within the reach of the powerful Totteridge batting line up.

Arjun Patel (44) and Cole Seggery (45) were the main contributors with the bat.

The Totteridge innings was a strange affair. Their batsmen regularly found the boundary and were scoring between five and six runs an over but their aggressive approach led to regular chances behind offered and accepted by the fielders. All ten wickets in their innings fell to catches.

Two of which by Perera to dismiss Rossington and Shah were spectacular in nature. Only Leo Davis (39no) showed much determination to stay at the crease and the final Totteridge total of 116ao left the Stags victors by 248 runs.

This meant the sides swapped places in the table and after ten matches the Stags are second just one win behind the leaders Harpenden.

West Herts seconds climbed away from the bottom of Division 2A recording their third win in four games with a convincing six-wicket victory over Knebworth Park.

The veteran Woosley brothers and youngsters Jai Singh, Hender and Ammaar Bandali combined to dismiss the home side for 97 and Greg Sumpter, making his first appearance of the season after injury, hit 32no with the bat. The third XI in Division 6B produced the most remarkable result of the day.

Languishing in the relegation positions in the league, they took on top of the table Ley Hill and racked up 302 with a century for Zankar Shah and then dismissed their opponents for only 192.

The fifth and sixth XIs both had convincing wins in Division 11 West and 12 West respectively. The fifth team consolidated their position at the top of the table with a 209 run win over Royal Herts whilst the sixth team beat Boxmoor by eight wkts.

The only loser on the day was the fourth XI who went down to Kings Langley by 58 runs.

The cricketing bonanza continued on Sunday when West Herts fielded four teams in the Hertford Junior League Finals day. This is the culmination of the very competitive competition played across Hertfordshire to crown the county champions.

The Stags were crowned U11 county champions but fell at the last hurdle and ended up runners up at the U12 and U14 age groups.

To round off a very busy weekend the Stags' development team overcame Harrow St Mary in the Chess Valley League.

Batting first West Herts posted a score of 221 -6 with Shilpa Muthukumarana (101) and K Thangiah (56) being the main contributors. In return Harrow St Mary could only muster 331 with D Mahawatte taking four wickets.

Unfortunately the first XI with a somewhat depleted team were soundly beaten by Potters Bar in the finals of the county 20/20 competition.