Booth v King Cross 26th April
In this first round match in the Rod Warhurst Trophy, Booth won the toss and chose to bat first on a pitch that had yielded 600 runs in a 2nd team match the day before.
The innings started badly and subsided to 10-3 with Gulbaz, Louis Weatherill and Hasnain Wajid all bowled by Bostan for ducks. Partnerships of 48 between Mohammed Jamil (55) and Asif (20) and then with Jameel of 83, made the score look more respectable. But at 141-5 the innings was still in the balance. A fine quick hard hitting partnership of 62 ensued between Jameel (95) and Geoff Laycock (34), taking the score passed 200, before Jameel was run out trying to walk a second run. A few more big hits from Geoff, supported by the tail eventually took the score to a respectable 248-9.
Things looked even better after the first 7 balls of the King Cross innings as they had subsided to 1-2, with early wickets being taken by Naz Hussain and Josh Oliver. Sadly, that was as good as it got. Firstly, Qamar smashed 7 sixes in a quick innings of 64 before skying a catch to Mike Barnett behind the stumps. This was followed by a match winning partnership of over 150 between Aziz and Shahid. Aziz was dropped three times early in his innings and he made Booth pay with a fine innings of 126 not out. King Cross eventually knocked off the runs to win by 5 wickets with 17 overs still remaining.
On the positive side there were some good early season innings for Booth, and a fine bowling display from new signing Richard Conway, whose figures of 1-49 in 7 overs don’t reflect how well he bowled.
Wins are now essential in the two remaining round robin cup games if we are to progress to the quarter finals.
