Having tied the first group game last week, we knew Saffron Walden was a must win game last night.

Captain Will Dommett won the toss and elected to field as we believed we could chase anything on our day with the top pitch looking an unbelievable batting wicket.

Having said that, I’m not sure anyone expected the level of ball striking the Saffron Walden openers demonstrated. Walden’s opening batsman Doel reached his 100 in the 11th over off just 43 balls! The opening pair put on 201 runs in 16.5 overs before Barbs finally removed the other opener for 69 runs. That was quickly followed by Doel who finished on an extraordinary 131, well caught by Dommett off Fisky’s bowling. That was the first ball of an unbelievable Matt Fisk over as he took a 4 wickets in 5 balls! We also completed 3 run outs as we took 7 wickets in 13 balls.
Walden finished 221-8 in their 20 overs, which was a good recovery from them being 180-0 off 14 overs.

During our mid innings chat, the whole team believed we had the batting to chase it down if we ensured we got ahead of the run rate and stayed ahead.
That is exactly what we did, as Max Sanderson and Henry Hawkins got us off to a flyer as we were 33-0 off 2 overs. Max unfortunately fell for 25 off 10 balls but Will Dommett also came out aggressively scoring a quick fire 16. James Frans then joined Henry and added a rapid 34 before being very unfortunately run out whilst backing up. All the while Henry was scoring boundaries all the round ground including four big 6s.
We needed 72 off the last 8 overs with Harry Pigram in at No.5. After four overs of steady 9 runs an over batting, Harry unleashed back to back big 6s and a boundary to boot, breaking the back of the chase. We proceeded to knock off the runs with an over to spare, Henry with an outstanding 85* off 49 balls and Harry with a vital 48* off 28 balls.

It was an incredible chase full of confidence, big hitting and innovation. Everyone watching on was stunned at the level of batting we’d seen from both teams. It means our qualification is still in our hands in the final group game away at Colchester.

There were definitely lessons to be learned for our bowlers in avoiding bowling to batters strengths and setting the correct fields. Similarly our fielding really struggled under the pressure of the ball striking, however the lads will be better for that experience. Overall we can be delighted with an incredible run chase and one that will live long in the memory!