Belmont & Edgware Cricket Club

Probably the hottest day of the year in the field brought on one of the hottest games of cricket this season as Belmont & Edgware battled Casual Nomads for the Play-off trophy. Danny Caro won the toss and after a long deliberation decided to put B&E into bat on what looked to be an interesting wicket.

Both teams were looking to score around 200 runs with the bat but very soon into the 1st innings, this was looking like an impossible task. The first wicket fell with 6 runs on the scoreboard and another 3 were lost with the score hovering on 10. This was a combination of very tight bowling by openers Daniel Hartman (2/24) and Steve Simon (3/16). Rafi Politinsky (3/25) also bowled a superb ginger spell claiming a contentious wicket of the usual anchorman Eddie Davis. To be fair to all the bowlers, although the pitch was by no means a decent batting pitch, with a little extra caution and work there were runs to be made and the bowlers worked very hard on a consistent line and length.

Trevor Woolf (13) and David Davis (22) started the first decent partnership of 32 to settle things down a little. The 9th wicket partnership (48) of Richard Ableson (15) and Richard Reggel (25) was most important and gave B&E a total of 116, something that the side could work with and defend. Both batsman showed their strong will and concentrated very hard to play a mixture of attacking boundary strokes and defensive strokes.

At tea Casual Nomads looked to be in a very strong position and confidence was high. B&E knew that a full attack was their only hope and the chances that went against them in their innings needed to be returned. The 2nd over bowled by E Davis brought on a fantastic wicket of opener Marc Goldie with the most fantastic catch my Oli Simons at short leg with the ball managing to stick somewhere in his entangled body and this was enough to start the fires burning. Davis left the field after bowling just 2 overs with an injury bringing his brother David to take over and who went on to bowl the most fantastic spell of 1/10 in 8 overs. Wickets fell consistently and with Danny Caro retiring hurt B&E saw signs of hope appearing as CN fell behind the run rate. Malnick and Hartman spent time at the crease and were both looking to add good runs to the total. Malnick was eventually caught by 12th man Gideon Reston brilliantly at mid-wicket of the bowling of spinner Richard Wienburg. Ableson bowled a great spell of 2/16 in his allotment which included a great stumping by Woolf and Neil Myeroff (2/4) continued from that end with Jonny Wynbourne (1/5) on the other to wrap up the tail including the return of Caro to the crease with the use of a runner. Sacks remained not out with 14 for his team's high-score making the most of every bad ball. Casual Nomads were all out for 85 which crowned Belmont & Edgware as trophy winners by 31 runs.

Man of the match was awarded by Maccabi to David Davis for his 22 runs with the bat and most important bowling figures of 8 overs 1/10. B&E now await the biggest game of the season. The Stuart Neils Final against London Maccabi Vale 1st XI to be played at Radlett on Sunday 12th. The match is due to start at midday and welcome any visitors to support the sides in this clash.