Shepherd Smashes Seconds to Opening Day Win

After weeks of miserable rain and with little outdoor practice, Beaconsfield came into the first league match of an important season with a positive attitude and some sort of relief just to be playing any sort of cricket at all. 2012 is an important season with the goal for the 2nds to bounce back with promotion after being relegated the previous year.

On bright and sunny day Beaconsfield 2nds started their league campaign away to Amersham 2nds at the picturesque ground of Shardeloes. Both teams were able to field strong teams which lead to a good game of cricket.

Beaconsfield won the toss and had no hesitations to bowl first on a deck that was firm but soft on top which would hopefully lead to some assistance for the bowlers in early stages. It was important that Beaconsfield exploited the bowler friendly conditions early on as it was clear the pitch would become easier to bat on as the day went on. The opening bowlers of Denzil Owen (3-48) and Ahmed Hassan (2-32) gave their side the perfect start by ripping through Amersham's top order and reducing the home side to 15 for 3 after 6 overs.

At this point it looked liked Beaconsfield could be chasing a very small total. However Amersham's middle order rebuilt their innings with some important partnerships and key half centuries from Langley (64) and Crasborn (70). The partnership of Langley and Crasborn threatened to swing the momentum of the game towards the home side but Oliver Bareham (1-23) came on to break the partnership of 57 in his first over. Tilbury joined Crasborn at the crease and offered good support until a miscommunication between the batsman lead to Tilbury being run out for 15 leaving Amersham 185/7 and with Denzil Owen coming back on and take two of the final 3 wickets, Amersham were soon all out for 203.

Beaconsfield had 53 overs to chase down their target of 204 and it was still important that Beaconsfield's top order took responsibility and got the team off to a good start on a pitch which still had something to offer for the bowlers. Jeremy Suter (21) and Paul Sylvester (14) got their team off to a solid start with an opening stand of 40 from the first 10 overs. Amersham began to apply some pressure on the Beaconsfield batting line up with the dismissal of both openers in quick succession leaving Beaconsfield 47 for 2, still requiring 158 runs for victory.

Beaconsfield was in need of a partnership to keep them on top in game after the dismissal of Jeremy Suter. This brought captain Andy Higgins (24) and Luke Shepherd (103) together at the crease. Both batted well in their own right. Shepherd played in an aggressive manner hitting anything slightly full or wide to the boundary with some power (nearly cleaning up his captain a few times too) even with a few played and misses which kept the Amersham bowlers interested. Higgins gave superb support to Shepherd rotating the strike and getting Shepherd on strike as much as possible.

The pairs partnership was guiding Beaconsfield to comfortable victory before Higgins decided to play an aggressive shot and was bowled by Sidebottom (2-19) which brought the partnership of 113 to close leaving the score 160 for 3. By then Beaconsfield was in complete control of the game and still had 22 overs to score the final 44 runs. Shepherd continued his array of blistering and powerful shots once joined by Ian Murphy. Their partnership of 40 finally brought Beaconsfield within sight of victory. With one hit needed to win the game Shepherd decided to advance down the wicket and finish the game in style but unfortunately he played and missed once to many times and was stumped by Langley.

The Beaconsfield winning runs came in the form of leg byes and gave them a comfortable win by 6 wickets.

Man of the Match: Luke Shepherd