Hemel Hempstead 114

Shenley Village 115-9

Hertfordshire Division Four

Shenley finally secured their first win of the season in dramatic circumstances against Hemel Hempstead.

With 26 overs left in the game, Shenley were poised for defeat at 70 for 9.

But an amazing 46-run partnership between captain Steve Scott (29) and Tony Shadbolt (15), who opens the bowling, steered their side home with 12 overs to go.

What made the win even more satisfying was the fact that Shenley fielded a much-weakened side.

After winning the toss, Hemel chose to bat and raced to 43 before losing their first wicket off the bowling of Scott.

From then on, the Shenley bowling attack managed to get to grips with the opposition's batsmen.

The bowlers were backed up by some excellent fielding, and only a 38-run partnership for the seventh wicket marred a perfect performance.

Hemel's last batsman was run out superbly by Chris Doyle in the 40th over.

Star bowler was Scott, who claimed a five-wicket haul for the loss of just 27 runs in 15 overs. He was well supported by Shadbolt (2 for 36), Ed Lilywhite (1 for 30) and Chris McDonald (1 for 15), who also took four catches.

Having bowled the opposition out before they had used their quota of 53 overs, Shenley had the balance of the 100 overs to claim the win.

But they got off to a terrible start and lost quick wickets to some fine bowling.

It wasn't until Lilywhite (19) joined Dave Stubbs (14) that things began to settle down.

When Lilywhite departed to a dubious LBW decision, Scott went in to join Stubbs.

Stubbs soon departed and two run outs later, both caused by Scott, put Shenley in trouble.

However, Scott made amends for those mistakes by helping to score the winning runs in a tense finale which saw Hemel lose their discipline.

SHENLEY: Cashin, stanley, McDonald, Doyle, Stubbs, Lilywhite, Scott, Perkins, Webb, Woodward, Shadbolt.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.