The Hertford collapse strikes again

Last season we batted awfully at Hertford and recorded our lowest score of the year. This year, with a strong batting line up and on a glorious pitch, we scored more runs but didn't bat much better.

Alec Chappell won another toss and elected to field. Unfortunately, Hertford's top 4 are effectively a county standard batting line up, and on a rock hard surface they found the pace of Sam and Alec to their liking. Hugh Cavener retired almost immediately and his replacement in the middle kept up the pace. Good spells from Ben Warman (1-22) and Stephen Walsh (2-25) put the brakes on towards the end, and Hertford's total of 137-3 was 15-20 less than had looked likely at halfway.

However, despite the excellent batting conditions we made things difficult for ourselves by giving wickets away cheaply. Joe Stanborough mistimed a pull (as did Will Price later in the innings), Joe Hawkins played across a straight ball, Coby Miles walked across his stumps to be bowled and Will Bowman chipped a simple catch after racing to 16 with a flurry of good shots. Only Joe Burslem, who edged a decent ball to slip, did not contribute to his own downfall.

Alec (22) and Sam Gardner (15 not out) were the only batsmen other than Will Bowman to reach double figures, and we subsided to a disappointing 97 all out. What made our loss particularly galling was that Hertford didn't even have to bowl all of their frontline bowlers to dismiss us. Disappointing.