Chesterfords visited Thorley on Saturday looking to continue their strong form by securing another 26 points away from home. After the heavy rain during the week Chesterfords expected to find a very damp low, slow pitch but instead found a hard flat pitch that looked ideal to bat on. Chesterfords won the toss and elected to bat first.

Chesterfords openers got off to a slow start thanks largely to the accurate bowling of S. Cruise and T. Pack, scoring only 40 off of 15 overs.  Phillips was the first to fall after hitting a cover drive in the air straight to B.Mills at silly mid off with  J. Lipscombe falling shortly afterwards after never really looking comfortable for 43. David Perring batted well and started to increase the run rate but he too found it hard to score freely as the pitch became slightly two paced. Thorley carried on applying pressure to the batsmen with a very good fielding display that made life very difficult for the Chesterfords batsmen to score.

The run rate was being stifled by Thorley’s good work until D. Lightning joined D. Perring at the crease and the two of them stared to take a few risks that looked as if they were paying off until Perring took one too many chances and was caught at mid off after a scoring a gritty 51. Lightning looked in scintillating form as he made batting look easy on the two paced track. He took no prisoners as he raced to his 50 which was full of expensive drives and intelligent cuts. Chesterfords score reached 204 off of 45 overs with Lightning finishing on 52 not out.

With the rain coming down everywhere except Thorley, Chesterfords opening pair of W. Mughal and T.Oreilly struggled to find their length as Thorley’s opening pair started to make light work of the 204 scored by Chesterfords with J. School looking in fine form. The turning point in the game came when Adam Miles and David Perring were thrown the ball. They both bowled superbly with Perring looking as if he could take a wicket with every ball. Thorley’s batsmen had no answer to the accuracy and variety of balls that both bowlers were producing and when Bob Mills wanted a quick single, that man Perring was there with a superb piece of fielding that involved a 1 handed pick up and throw which obliterated the stumps from 35 yards finding Mills well out of his crease. A. Miles finished with figures of 4 for 43 but the match winning performance was produced by Perring who finished with figures of 4 for 35 , 51 runs and one run out..

 Chesterfords bowled Thorley out for 126 winning the game by 78 runs.  Chesterfords are now only 5 points behind the leaders as they look for automatic promotion into division 1 of the Herts 1017 League. 

Scorecard