Basso's blast takes us to the final

After heavy overnight rain, we arrived at Broxbourne CC to find one of their two grounds out of commission in the morning. On the plus side the inclement weather meant that key man Alex Portas was available after all, and he came into our side for the semi final against Radlett, which took place after West Herts had demolished Harpenden in the first semi.

Radlett won the toss and made a confident start with Prideaux relishing Portas's pace and the short square boundaries. At the other end, Sam Gardner began with two excellent overs, and this tight start paid dividends when Matt Pike forced opener Sahota to chip a return catch for a duck.

Getting Prideaux out was paramount and Alec Chappell obliged in the ninth over, bowling him for 34. McCallum came to the wicket and played aggressively, but good spells from Chappell, Pike and Will Price kept the score in check. Price took a good catch to remove Ignatius from Ben Warman's bowling, before Pike took a superb low catch at deep midwicket to remove McCallum. Good late hitting from Ellingham took our opponents' score to 133, a decent total but gettable on a small ground.

Our reply suffered an early blow when Alec snicked off for 2, but Matt Pike and Alex Portas are a dangerous combination and Matt hit a rapid 24 before holing out. Joe Hawkins then came in and while he played himself in, Alex began to accelerate. After Prideaux dropped him at midwicket - not a particularly difficult chance - Alex made Radlett pay, dispatching Sahota into the nearby canal and hitting two other sixes in an impressive 50.

Despite this excellent knock, we still required 27 from 24 balls but any worries we might have had about a close finish were removed as Joe Hawkins stuck Ignatius into the canal and Adam Bassingthwaighte displayed his class with three exquisite shots (a six and two fours in consecutive balls) to bring the game to an abrupt end. We won with two overs to spare, leaving a shell-shocked Radlett side wondering where it had all gone wrong.

The game ended at 3pm and there was a final to play, without much rest. But more of that elsewhere...