Flamstead suffered a seven wicket defeat against Hertford III

SHL Division Six

Flamstead 96

Hertford III 97-3

Hertford won by seven wickets

Flamstead lost their second league match in a row at home against Hertford III.

Without skipper, Andy Taylor, vice-captain, Matt Brown lost the toss and unsurprisingly Flamstead were inserted on another damp wicket.

In terrible weather conditions more akin to November Flamstead made a steady start as youngsters James Clark and Rob Gibson put on 34 off 9.5 overs before Gibson (6) was bowled by Chalkey.

Five runs later Richard Heseltine was bowled for a duck by Kumar who then reduced Flamstead to 46-4 as he took three wickets in the space of 5 balls including the wicket of Clark for an excellent 34. Flamstead never recovered from the collapse of their middle order and only Twiggy Rogers (19) got into double figures as Flamstead were all out for 96 in 32 overs. Kumar (6 for 39 off 16 overs) was the pick of the Hertford bowlers as eight of the Flamstead batsmen were bowled.

With the weather still poor Flamstead needed to take some quick wickets to be in with a chance of a win. Twiggy Rogers soon obliged by bowling Spring with the score on 11.

Rogers then struck again and with Martin Lindley replacing Josh Rose, who was finding it tough in the conditions, Hertford were 38 for three as Lindley bowled the number four. Unfortunately the Flamstead bowlers could not bowl as straight as the visitors and an undefeated stand of 59 between Patel (41*) and Short (18*) saw Hertford home.

The watching skipper, Andy Taylor, was disappointed with his team’s performance even allowing for the difficult conditions. “Our batsmen did not get their heads down and too many gave their wickets away with poor shot selection,” he said.

“The Hertford bowlers just bowled straight and waited for us to make mistakes. We did not put enough pressure on the Hertford batsmen as the bowling was not as accurate as it normally is. We now face Ware next week who have won both their two league games so we must improve in all departments in order to get our first win of the season.”