Weekend Round-up May 25/26

What A Weekend – It’s a clean sweep weekend and all four Preston Herts Leagues sides claimed victory on Saturday!!

Preston First X1 beat Letchworth CC by 68 runs in 50/50 format in the Championship Division. Letchworth won the toss and inserted Preston to take first knock but Preston capitalised using all the 50 overs to reach a competitive, if possibly under par, 231 All out. Wharton fell just shy of another 50 (41), supported by decent knocks from Skipper Jake George and George Biggs.
In reply Letchworth could only muster 163 All Out in the 47th over. Aussie Jack Bermingham snared a couple of wickets with Luke Marsden, Justin Powick and Pete Murrell all picking up vital wickets to restrict the visitors. An impressive all round team display from Preston to secure an important win against Letchworth CC.

Preston Second X1 continued their unbeaten start in Div 4B. Preston decided to bowl first on what looked like an interesting wicket. The Preston attack kept things very tight with evergreen Waters claiming a miserly 3/10 off ten overs. Skipper Fleckney mopped up the Exiles tail taking 3/6 to see Exiles all out in the 34th over for the low total of 87. Preston took their time in reply seeing the wicket still had a big part to play but a sensible and patient innings from Lachie Turner set up the win seeing Preston get to 91 for the loss of only three wickets in under 30 overs.

Preston’s Third X1 saw off Hemel Hempstead 4th X1. Electing to Bat, Preston reached 161/7 off their 40 overs. The in-form Amit Rajani helped himself to another 50 (51), supported by Skipper Staddon (37) and young Luke Ponder (29) in support. The Preston bowlers then mounted the pressure from ball one with James Skirrow taking 3/15 off his eight overs causing the most problems. Hemel reached 114 All Out in 28th overs to see Preston claim the 30 points.

And Preston Fourth X1 also claimed glory this week by a mere one run with all results possible going into the final over against Stevenage 5th’s! Asked to bat first, Preston lost openers Tennant and Harper in quick succession. Garnham (17) and Skipper Phillips set about rebuilding a competitive total before seeing Garnham fall off a good one from Stevenage’s Salvi. Phillips top scored with 32 but the side were all out for an under par 110. Preston’s opening bowling pair of Tompkins and Ashby claimed early wickets and the introduction of Nanjundan really put Stevenage under the cosh as he claimed 3/28. A brilliant run out from Srinivasan caused further dents in the Stevanage line-up. Skipper Phillips entered the fray and struck Stevenage’s Allen squarely on the pad and saw the umpire’s finger raised as Stevenage fell just one run short in a thriller. Preston picks up their first win of the season and a trip to Welwyn next weekend awaits. It was also excellent to see several of our younger players moving up into senior cricket and really making match winning contributions.

Sunday was supposed to see Preston in the next game in the Voneus Village Cup against Sawbridgeworth but Sawbo conceded the match handing Preston the win and now excitedly finds itself in the regional final scheduled for Sunday 9th June!

….and we’re hugely excited to see the Preston Women’s X1 start to take shape. They have been hard at work this week with more net training and fielding sessions prior to their first game against Ickwell Green CC on June 10th. This is a very important step for the club and one we hope to continue build on and see more women’s cricket at Preston CC