Belmont & Edgware Cricket Club

The third part of the trilogy took place in the blazing heat at Parmiters between Belmont & Edgware 1st XI and Northwood & Newlands. As expected, this was going to be the final battle in the war and no-one was going to give up without a good fight.

Again N&N won the toss but this time decided to put B&E into bat and try their luck chasing a total for a change. The innings got off to a later than usual start and N&N played with 8 players for the 1st 2 overs as others were lost somewhere in North London. An early wicket fell as the pitch looked lively. Marc Boland was firing them through from one end whilst Hightower Kangisser almost took off a few heads from the other.

Eddie Davis and Oli Simons were not going to let this one slip for B&E and went on to make a 100+ partnership for the 2nd wicket. Simons eventually was beaten on 57. Jonny Wymbourne contributed another 17 and after 2 quick wickets by Jon Mymin putting him on a hat-trick ball, N&N restricted the opposition to 213/6. Eddie Davis carried his bat for an unbeaten 84 showing that runs can be scored without the need for rash hitting. Mymin finished with figures 5/40. A great wicket to wicket spell that looked to set N&N up for a gettable target.

After tea N&N began their innings restricted to 38 overs after being penalised for slow bowling which proved to make a difference in the end. Tight bowling by Wymbourne, Reggel and Myeroff were keeping N&N from keeping up with the run rate. Bringing Eddie Davis on later in the innings looked to make things increasingly difficult to chase until Jonny Kay appeared at the wicket and began blasting everything around the pitch. He scored a fantastic 42 in no time at all to bring up the run-rate and set N&N up for a very close finish. Alan Trope eventually fell for a solid 47 and only looked to get run-out earlier in the innings. Alex Haffner put on a solid 31 pushing N&N almost to an astounding victory only to be saved for B&E by Oli Simons who took 3 vital last minute wickets in his last 2 overs and Wienburg who managed to stop Kay from reaching his half century. N&N finished just 7 runs short of a grand victory.

Performances came from all members of both teams and made for an incredible close to a 3 test match series between the clubs. Belmont & Edgware look forward to finally facing Casual Nomads this season in the Play-off final.