Herts League Handbook 2016

racked up a 43-ball 50, which included eight fours and six, but Ibby Usman added Barnard to the earlier scalp of Koch when he had him caught at deep long on for 55. Barnard was livid with himself. He knew he was well set and was ready to cash in on his reprieve. His mood would have lightened by the sight of Jadeja, the left hander in at No 4, playing a series of textbook shots through the V to put on 74 for the third wicket with Kyle Claxton. Jadeja was particularly keen not to let Matt Dunstone establish an iron-grip with his probing left-arm spin and he used his feet well to leave Green well-placed at 145 for three at the half-way point. Jadeja continued to adopt an aggressive approach against spin after drinks, hoisting the gentle right- arm offering of Newman into the sight screen for a maximum to bring up his 50 in style. You would have backed Jadeja, who played just as fluently as his fellow left-hander Newman, to see Green home at that point but off Newman’s next over, he got greedy and picked out Chellew, probably the best fielder on the park, at wide long on for 62.

With 98 needed off 120 balls and six wickets in hand, Green were still firm favourites and just needed to tick along at less than a run a ball. Newman was now having more of an influence on the field, calling on his years of first-class cricket experience. Green needed a cool head. They found one, on a glorious summer evening, in Nahim Iqbal. He nudged and nurdled Green closer and closer, dovetailing beautifully with Ajit Kumar whose subdued start showed no sign of the pyrotechnics to come. The right- handed pair both enjoyed lives; Newman put down a sharp caught and bowled chance to remove Nahim with the last ball of the 36th over and then, more crucially, Daniel Roche dropped Ajit at cover from a chance that came out of the clouds. Ajit was also let off by a chance at square leg which Matty Parkins will feel he should have grabbed.

Nahim and Ajit, with a partnership of 79, manoeuvred Dayle Littlejohn’s side to a position where they needed just 19 off 24 balls and with five batsman still in the hutch to complete the Division 2A league and cup double, they virtually had one hand on the Readers Trophy. Abbots were beaten, none more so than when Parkins kicked a boundary flag and then threw his cap after allowing a cut through backward point to go through his legs for a crucial boundary. All Green needed to do was play an old fashioned game of tip and run to score the 19 they needed off the last 24 balls. They should have walked it. They didn’t just press the panic button, they rolled all over it.

Nahim was caught and bowled by Dunstone and Green only mustered four runs off the next 2.4 overs as Chellew choose the perfect time to bowl a maiden. It was the kind of thing that came straight out of Cricket Superstar, an Australian programme the Western Australian starred in.

With two balls of the penultimate over remaining, Green were bracing themselves for a final over target of 13 as they struggled to get Barry Warner off the square but then, from nowhere, Ajit launched the most almighty six over deep midwicket, the ball sailing over the score box at Heath Park. Game on. The drama was far from over. Not a chance. Ajit was bowled off the first ball of the last over and then after singles off the next two balls, Littlejohn was also cleaned up by Chellew. The pendulum had swung firmly in the favour of Abbots and they would have been the winners had they conceded four runs or less off the final two deliveries. The smart money was on Chellew to hold his nerve, particularly as he had, incredibly, only conceded two runs off his previous 14 balls. But he lost his radar at the crucial moment as Green squeezed home without laying bat on ball, watching the penultimate ball of the match flick off the pad of Majid down leg side for four and then the final one of a most extraordinary afternoon deflect again off the trusty left pad of the right-hander.

The evergreen Dave Tyson did not need any invitation to back up and the club legend ground his bat at the striker’s end and that was that.

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