Ickwell slip up after decent start

Ickwell won the toss, chose to bat first and a quickfire opening stand of 55 between Milin Gandhi (44) and Ross Fensome (26) got them off to a flying start.

But the scoring rate slowed in the middle innings as Matt Hamilton (37) and Harry Young (43) battled with some tight bowling by Nazim Shah (4-24).

Ross Cunningham (35) helped up the scoring rate with a couple of well struck sixes.

Iftikhar Hussain (29) and Hassim Yousef (79 not out) also got Queens Park off to a brisk start until a mix up resulted in Hussein being run out.

After a rain interruption the score required to win was reduced to 199 from 39 overs. Queen’s Park comfortably passed this total for victory.

There was more success for the seconds as they returned from Kempston Sports with a five wicket victory.

Kempston Sports chose to bat but after 36 overs they were all out for 145. Ewan Wilkinson (3-13) opened the bowling and gave little away in his eight overs.

Later in the innings Darren De-Vyott (3-3) was successful in cleaning up the tail in just two overs.

A second wicket stand of 53 between Sam Barrow (32) and Tom Winetroube (33) got Ickwell well on the way to their target.

Another four wickets fell fairly cheaply but then Darren Williams (31 not out) and Shiva Songara (24 not out) saw the visitors home with an unbroken sixth wicket stand of 53.

They found the going tougher on The Green against Castor & Ailsworth IIs in the Hunts League Division Four on Saturday.

The visitors opted to bat and Ickwell took a couple of early wickets but then Andy Johnston (60), Jason Dunn (38) and Jon Moulds (77) helped get the visitors to a healthy score of 237-7.

Sam Barrow (4-47) was the best of the Ickwell bowlers.

An understrength Ickwell side batted out 36 overs but were eventually all out for 124 runs and lost the match by 113 runs.

Top scorers were Darren Williams (33) and Sam Barrow (23).