Horspath joined Gerrards Cross at the foot of the Home Counties West Division as they narrowly failed to turn a fine all round performance into a much needed victory at Harefield on Saturday.
Their bowling and fielding were very disciplined as they restricted Harefield to 175–8 in their 60 overs. Mohson Rana made the early breakthrough and two fine stumpings by Andy Wynd resulted in two wickets for Jehan Mohammed before lunch.
After lunch long accurate spells by Adam Krol and particularly Mark Skelton saw Harefield lose wickets at regular intervals including Simon Macey for a patient 58 before the innings closed.
Horspath’s reply got off to a fine start with an opening stand of 35 between Robbie Eason and Joe Todd before the latter became the first victim of four consecutive umpiring decisions that ripped out the Horspath middle order as the repetitive intimidating appealing had its effect, Jimmy Phillips and Tim Hutchinson both being given out LBW and Krol adjudged caught behind.
Robbie Eason (37) and Matt O’Connor partly repaired the damage by putting together a stand of 40 before both fell in quick succession, and with Andy Wynd falling cheaply with the score at 107 things did not look good.
A fine counter attack by Will Eason (38 no) and Mark Skelton (15) saw Horspath take the score up to 150 and put the result in the balance. However when Zimbabian test bowler Nkala dismissed Skelton and then Jehan on the same score it was left to Mohson and Will Eason, but despite their best efforts scoring 11 off the last over was beyond them and the match was drawn.
