Premier Division title reward for Hadleigh fielding prowess

12:10pm Thursday 18th March 2010

By Chris Phillips

THE final round of matches in the Southend Indoor Cricket League saw reigning champions Hadleigh and Thundersley retain the Premier title with a regulation win against bottom team Rayleigh.

Liam Druce who scored 23, Jon Ox (22), and Ian Bryant (16) battled hard but Rayleigh were unable to score quickly enough and were restricted to 78–5 in their 12 overs in the face of accurate Hadleigh bowling from Joe Robbins, who took two wickets for 25, and off spinner Ollie Wagstaff (1-19).

Skipper Paul Tibbenham led by example by donning the gloves to stand in for the regular wicket keeper, who was a late withdrawal, and he capped a fine display with a catch and a slick stumping off pace bowler Robbins.

In reply Hadleigh lost a couple of early wickets but soon slipped into gear to race to 79-2 in only 6.3 overs with Robbins and Wagstaff, both of whom are only 18 years old, each completing fine all round displays by scoring 27 not out.

Wagstaff’s innings was explosive as he blasted his 27 runs off only eight balls to lead his team to victory by four wickets.

This completed a fine season for undefeated Hadleigh who also reached the final of the Essex County Indoor competition.

The final match in division one between Rayleigh Fairview and Southend-on-Sea was effectively a play off for the division as either team could have won the title. It was a tense low scoring game.

Southend’s strong batting line up was surprised by the hostile bowling of Fairview’s young pace attack of Will Osbourne, Tom Webster and Jamie Lawson (2-15).

But it was occasional bowler Russell Shearman who reaped the dividends by taking 4-19 and things looked bleak at the interval for Southend after they crumbled to 64 all out with only James Gilroy (17) and John Horne (14) making an impression. But the Essex League side showed their experience to pressurise Fairview’s young team with some tight bowling that saw Simon Wray return the best analysis of 3-9.

Despite the efforts of Harry Ragan (19) and Osbourne (15), Fairview collapsed to 55 all out, and the nine-run victory preserved Southend’s 100 per cent winning record to give them the title and promotion to the Premier Division. Fairview finished second.

Eastwood were involved in the final two games in the Premier Division. In the first they had a narrow win over Westcliff. James Davies (27no) and Joel Squire (22) batted well but Eastwood posted only a modest score of 85-4. In reply Westcliff managed only 80 all out, with David Colwill making the top score of 27. Westcliff were run out by excellent fielding from Eastwood who won by five runs.