Before the toss the Hoddesdon captain described his team as a batting side, and they certainly were. Their line up contained two 1st team batsmen, and please bear in mind that their 1st team play in the very top division of the Saracens Hertfordshire League.
With this in mind I knew we had to bowl and field well, and boy did we.
From the very first ball the attitude was A1 and it always felt like we had a chance of bowling them out. Stephen Underwood made the initial breakthrough against the first daddy batsman and we never looked back.
At one point Rosaneri were totally in control and Hoddesdon were on the ropes at 70 for 6. But then came the second 1st XI batsman tucked away at number 8. On the way to the crease he was described as “Mr Technique”, and boasted a ton in his last league match.
A big partnership followed, but the pinks did create chances and the top batsman was dropped twice with chances that were not over complicated.
The partnership was eventually broken and Rosaneri roared through the last 6 overs to wrap up the tail and limit the home side to a gettable 233 on an Edmonton type pitch.
Steve Shewring picked up 2 wickets, Gareth Cox 3, and Mat Freeman was the real star of the show picking up a brilliant 4 for 37. A special mention must also be made of top all round fielding, but in particular Big Mike Freeman’s two diving catch specials, and Sheridan’s stylish display behind the stumps.
The Rosaneri reply had a number of factors conspire against it, but the most important one was the strange batting order enforced upon us by the fact that the Underwood brothers had to bat and leave due to personal circumstances.
With two players having to rush off it meant that Mat Freeman and Jim Downing had to bat at 10 and 11 because they had to take care of the scoring and umpiring with a number of rookies in the side.
The rain became heavy and thoughts of a paced run chase soon evaporated in a very rushed conclusion. Nevertheless there were a couple of notable performances with the bat including an aggressive 39 from Gareth and a controlled unbeaten 25 from Big Mike.
The ending was disappointing and on a dry less chaotic Sunday evening Rosaneri could easily have achieved the result they deserved.