We were missing our Captain this week, but other than that has a strong side. Richie Howard, our original Kiwi was back and young fast bowler Adam Swede (rechristened Sweety, from Swedey) received his second cap. 

Dom, standing in for Nick, lost the toss and was asked to bat first - fortunate really as our opening bowler was just finishing his second pint at Marylebone station and wouldn't join us for another hour - no prizes for guessing who! Dom and Henry managed a tricky opening spell in which ball dominated bat, moving through the air, seeming off a grassy wicket and being held up in a lush outfield. Patience paid off and soon shots began to come, singles and twos were dashed and we reached 80 odd without loss. Dom eventually chipped back to the bowler and Henry King joined Henry Capper and together they put on a massive stand. 

Capper, Alistair Cook-esque, stuck to his game plan and ground the bowlers down, punishing balls in his areas and confidently defending the good ones over yet another high class, chanceless innings. King in contrast is more in the mould of the England middle order, hell-bent on attack, all the shots in his locker, clean striking. The scoreboard rattled along, the partnership well over 100. When Ley Hill realised they couldn't get Capper out, they thought to retire him and struck him hard on the back of the head with a run out attempt. Capper was not to be moved. 

Eventually King was dismissed in the 80s, Spencer joined Capper and stole the strike to such a great extent that Dom threatened to declare with Henry still in the 90s. Only in jest of course and Capper soon cruised to another well earned century, and with 230-2 on the board, we declared. 

Our reward for an early declaration was a 20 minute spell with the ball before tea. This situation rather confused Will Cousins, who had nipped home to send a couple of emails, leaving Jeremy (!?) in charge of calling him should he be needed. Will strolled casually round the boundary an hour later and chatted briefly to a few spectators in the pavilion before it dawned on him that his ten colleagues were all in the field and he threw on some whites and dashed out to join us. 

Luke and Adam (Sweety) started beautifully; quick, attacking, and too much for Ley Hill's top order to handle. In their opening two overs Adam had one batsman fending to gully where Dom held on, and Luke ripped through their in-form danger man at 3, knocking back the top of middle stump. 

Things got better and better for the Heath after tea. Rested, Luke and Adam were able to come back just a fast and strong and quick as a flash, Ley Hill were 4 down and still 225 runs behind. At this point the shutters came down and batsmen quite understandably went into survival mode. Some Kiwi guile was employed, Richie rolling back the years and hooping the ball round corners, he deserved more than his one wicket. Time for a bit of golden arm...newly rebranded Omar (see Umar in previous reports), started full and straight and almost immediately made a breakthrough, LBW. The next delivery was practically an action replay, LBW and Omar whooped ecstatically. Hatrick ball, every fielder crowed round the bat, but Omar didn't need them, his delivery clattered into middle and off and the whooping began again. What a moment, our first hatrick since 2007, SCENES! 

We'd broken the back of Ley Hill and victory was almost certain. An ideal time for a a bit of offspin thought Dom and helped himself to a few overs and a couple of wickets; instructions from set batsmen to new batsman were "It's all over the place, but watch the straight one", I couldn't have put it better. 

With numbers 10 and 11 defending stoically, the quick men were brought back and it was Adam who would have the final say, taking his third wicket. A clinical performance, and a tough man of the match decision, the centurion or hatrick man? For his offhand comment to the oppo in the pub afterwards "It's funny, I'm not even a bowler", I think Omar pips it. 

Well here we go, my first match report.  Back to Hyde Heath we were, not a dandelion in sight, Mike’s wicket was once again looking superb.  Ballinger could really do with his services!  Unfortunately, we lost the toss again and were put into bat by the Red Square Lions. Luke and Will to open, things started ok and then we lost Will and Andy quickly and things were looking a little wobbly at 18 for 2.  Then through the white gates strode Umar.  After telling me all week that his preferred batting position is no.4 I thought I’d give him a go. Luke and Umar steadied it all.  Umar proved me right and hit a fantastic 66 with 10 fours, and 1 six and a partnership with Luke of 113.  Luke continued to bat comfortably getting 81 not quite all the way to his first ton for the club! Three wickets then fell quickly with Spence and Nick both getting blobs.  Then in came Ben Sonley with a quick-fire 19 so a good first innings total of 212 – definitely some runs to bowl at.

Fantastic tea with Laurie’s lovely sandwiches and Janet’s beautiful cakes.   

So into the field we went.  We couldn’t get the early breakthroughs we were looking for.  Ben and Spencer were very unlikely starting off. After 10 overs we had contained them to 30 odd so unless we bowled them all out this was definitely heading for a draw.  We managed to pick up 7 wickets, 3 for Spencer off 2 spells adding up to 15 overs – really good effort.  3 wickets for Luke, unlucky not to take 7 and one to the ever-reliable Jez.  So I guess you call this a winning draw for Hyde Heath as the Red Square Lions finished at 136 for 7.   

I do think if we’d won the toss and bowled first we would have had another win. Better luck next week. 

Nick Burgham

A tough Sunday at Ballinger, we were beaten comfortably by a good opposition and an awful wicket. 

Asked to bat first on not so much a green top, as a weed top, our innings never really got going. An excellent new ball pair, a couple of scuttlers and a couple of good catches made for single figure scores almost all the way down. The one exception was Spencer, around whom our innings was built. He appeared to be playing on a different surface and against different bowling to the rest of us and clattered his way to 36, our top score. Nine down inside 20 overs gave Liam and Ben licence to play their natural occupational games, to great effect, picking up singles and the occasional 4 byes to inch us into the 120s, which if not competitive at least gave us something to bowl at. 

We started well with the ball, picking up a couple of early wickets, but these were to be our only victims. With only 70 odd still required, Ballinger's record holding run scorer came to the middle and made things look pretty easy. 

After test matches losing captains talk about taking away the positives. Well, how about this for a positive; by six o'clock we were showered, changed and outside the Plough in the sunshine with a round of cold beers, toasting England's success at Lord's and consoling ourselves with the fact the we'd scored more runs than South Africa that afternoon. 

Dom Haddock

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We have Matt to thank for our match this weekend. The Chair managed to magic up a fixture through the conference after Colney Heath pulled out on Thursday. The side we played, London Car Rentals, were among the strongest we'll face and a very friendly bunch, who played the game in just the right spirit. A fixture to repeat perhaps?  

To the cricket. We rather let ourselves down in the field, we started sloppily with the ball and though our bowlers pulled things back, our fielding was pretty dreadful. Countless catches went down and basic stops not made, it was all very unlike us. Credit though must go to Kenny who fielded well and offered unsolicited, unconstructive fielding tips to everyone else and to Nick who took an excellent catch at mid off (before shelling a much simpler one a couple of overs later). A couple of clean striking, aggressive innings piled on pressure and runs and we went to tea requiring 240 to win. 

For the early part of our innings, we kept near enough to the required run rate. Henry was not at his most fluent, but never looked like being dismissed and played a crucial anchoring innings for Henry King, Spencer and Umar to play with freedom around him. Spencer's innings was of particular note, his second score in the 40s in as many weeks and whilst he was there it looked for all the world that we might pull off a run chase that would have gone down in the history books. 

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President's Day, the highlight of the social calendar was upon us again. The beer festival the night before had been a roaring success and we're all very grateful to Nick and Emma for their wonderful organisation and to many others who helped set up, work the bar and man the BBQ. 

Following many years of washed out, rain effected, or one sided matches this year's President's Day fixture was competitive and played under sunny skies. Charlie dusted off his whites to skipper Johny Capper's side of HHCC alumni, local rivals and old friends. As is tradition, the club bowled first and things got off to a suspect start when a short pitched delivery scuttled along the deck to bowl their opening bat, and when Luke pulled off a stunning return catch in his next over the score was 10-2 and Johny was worrying.

Fortunately at this stage Charlie, presumably keen to generously set the Heath batsmen something to chase, overlooked a convincing LBW appeal and Adam Pusey capitalised. His 151* was beautifully constructed, brutal at times and patient at others. We bowled well throughout, Luke particularly. Our fielding wasn't at its best but there were some high points, Ben deflecting a straight drive back onto the stumps in his bowling follow through, and a sharp diving catch by Dom behind the stumps. 

The President's XI set 238 which would take some getting. Our reply got off to a stuttering start. Plenty got in, but then got themselves out. The sight of Luke leaving a straight one rather summed things up. Then Henry King and Spencer came together and both scored at a great rate, with such confidence that it looked like a win might just become possible. But in the 30s Henry was caught attempting to chip over the infield and all of a sudden our tactics needed to change. 

Fiddy, at that stage on 30, took it upon himself to see us home to a draw. Seeping determination from every pore, he resisted loopy declaration bowling, the return of quick openers and a bucket load of unsolicited advice from fielders. It was a selfless (he finished tantalising close to 50), mature and match saving innings, the best I have seen him play. Wickets fell at the other end, until our last man Ben came to the crease, fresh from his long blocking session two weeks ago and the pair barnacled their way to the close. 

An excellent day for the club and the village, made possible by the army of local volunteers to whom we are extremely grateful.  

Dom Haddock

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Two fantastic individual performances, well supported by the rest of the side took us to our seventh victory in a row this weekend. 

We lost the toss to Southwell Ramblers and we're asked to bowl first on what looked like a belting wicket and quick outfield. The Ramblers strong start confirmed this and they raced to 40 without loss. We managed to peg them back a bit, then Nick unleashed Adnan and the game changed. Adnan bowled beautifully all afternoon. He took a good return catch from their star man and Henry supported him behind the sticks with three stumpings. This is to be Adnan's final spell for the club as he's moving to Leeds and his parting gift to us was 7 for 41, well bowled. Sohail bowled a fearsome spell, which included a characteristic 'bowled' wicket. Stanley and Ben were unlucky not to break through and Dom popped up at the end to buy a couple of wickets thanks to a stunning overhead boundary catch from Stanley and a more regulation grab by Kenny. 

We bowled the Ramblers out for 139. We've made hard work of similar chases recently, but not so this week. Henry and Dom's opening stand was dominated by Henry who's having an outstanding season, but even in that context this knock was special. He timed the ball sweetly from the first over, playing classy shots to all parts, there was nowhere to bowl to him. When Dom's much more conservative innings came to an end the score was over 100 and victory a near certainty. HHCC debutant Henry K made short work of the 30 or so still required, with some smart shots that we look forward to seeing more of. Henry finished on 87* and pushed his season average above 400. He even bought a jug to mark the occasion! 

So we say farewell to Adnan who we have enjoyed playing with so much for the last few years - we wish him well in Leeds. There's space in the side again for a leg spinner, anyone know what time the first Eurostar pulls into St Pancras on Sunday mornings? 

Dom Haddock

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An wonderful victory for HHCC this week, to extend the winning streak to six. Things didn't get off to a good start though, Little Missenden's Australian opening bat got off to a flyer with well struck cover drives, to put 47 in the score board without loss after 8 overs. We needed some magic and Sohail provided it, strangling the Aussie down leg. There followed an odd exchange as the batsman firmly told the umpire to retract his decision, claiming not to have hit it, which the umpire, in the spirit of a Theresa May U-turn, did. With one eye on catches column in the end of season averages sheet, Dom just as firmly reminded the umpire how umpiring worked and to his credit said umpire upheld his original decision, pleasing the many (fielders), not the few (the batsman). 

Sohail struck again the very next ball and from there on in, we were into them. Ben reeled off 12 excellent overs and took two wickets and Adnan tossed the ball high, extracted turn and took three wickets for 15 runs from eight overs. Bursts from Kenny and Fiddy saw them take a wicket apiece and Aaron's cool head ensured we capitalised on some suicidal running between the wickets. We bowled Little Missenden out for 119. 

Oh what a mess our top order made of the chase, we were quickly 14 for 4. Out strode Kenny and we wondered what his approach might be to this perilous situation. He decided to belt everything pitched in his half as hard as he could and it was good to watch. He needed a foil, someone to sure up an end and Aaron was the man, enabling Kenny to keep hitting freely. It took a wonderful catch to dismiss Kenny, who fell just one short of his 50, but what a wonderfully entertaining and match resuscitating 49 it was. 

There was still work to be done. Now 8 down, we were still 30 short and in the context of a 120 run target, still a way off. We needed another significant innings and Liam provided it. His wicket was never in doubt, even when opening bowlers were brought back on, Liam's forward defence was impenetrable. He played no false or forcing shots and knew that with 20 overs still remaining, the singles would come. Slowly but surely he was getting us to the line. Liam was ably supported by Ben, who occupied wonderfully in the slowest but most important 4 not out I've ever witnessed. A guide past backward point and we'd done it! Liam finished on 22*. 

After an excellent fielding effort, it look for all the world that we'd thrown this game away. But every single one of our numbers 5 to 10 contributed, to make damn sure we won and keep our winning streak going. Will it last to President's day? 

Dom Haddock

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Dom Haddock

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Dom Haddock

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