Match Centre

Bowlers set up first victory of the season

Hatherley threes bounced back from a close defeat last week by beating Birdlip and Brimpsfield at South Park.

After coming up slightly short last week in a close defeat at Ruardean Hill Hatherley needed a win to kick start the season. They welcomed Birdlip who were also looking to register their first win. A few changes with Sam McCormack, Kash Pervaiz and Robin Smith stepping up from the 4ths with Shahrukh Ali going up to the twos and Tom Perks and Vivaan Rajawat unavailable. 

On a hot day captain Tom Coote won the toss and backed his bowlers by putting Birdlip in. Matt Hole and Mirza Mahmud took the new ball and both bowled brilliantly finding swing and a lot of seam movement to tear through the Birdlip top order. Matt in particular was sensational taking 3 wickets in a 6 over spell of high skill fast bowling. What was most pleasing is the top 5 of Birdlip were all out bowled or LBW which showed we were attacking the stumps and bowling straight . Also neither Matt nor a Mirza bowled a wide between which is something this side has struggled to do in the past few seasons. Sam McCormack and Kash followed up with good spells and Ben Higgs supported well as Hatherley kept the pressure on and continued to attack. 

Birdlip rebuilt with Nitin Shetty and Sathya Prakash digging in and starting to look dangerous. Hatherley also were hit with an hamstring injury to Mark McShane. We owe a massive thanks to Lucy Johnstone one of our hawks players for sub fielding for us, fielding with 10 players in that heat was just the short of thing that could of brought Birdlip back into the game. Sam Mac removed the key man Shetty but Kevin Blackburn also looked dangerous before hauling out to Kash with Matt Hole taking a good catch in the deep. Ben Higgs then removed Sathya Prakash for a well made 19 as he tried to push the scoreboard along. 

Mirza came back and finished the innings with two good caught and bowls ending with figures of 3-13 to bowl Birdlip out for 103. Jake Nickell and Robin Smith got the chase off to a good start putting on 36 without much trouble Robin hitting a beautiful straight six in the process. Birdlip again fought back with Sachin Kulkarni trapping Jake LBW and bowling Josh Moore for a duck. A fired up Sathya Prakash bowled a brilliant and skilful 8 over spell with the new ball and finally got his rewards in his last over trapping Robin and Matt Dicks plumb LBW in the space of 3 balls. 

Hatherley had suddenly lost 4 wickets for 6 runs and still needed 60 more runs for victory a potential opportunity for the visiting side. Captain Tom Coote and Matt Hole got together and started working down the target in 10s. Coote absorbed the pressure well and put away the bad balls. Matt Hole played with more freedom and in a man of the match performance scored an unbeaten run a ball 28 to go with his 3 wickets. Coote having got his side within touching distance played a poor ball onto his stumps to fall for 17 with 20 runs needed. Mirza and Matt then saw us comfortably home by 5 wickets. 

Great performance from the threes this week especially with the ball and in the field. We go the Lydney next week with some momentum.