Indoor Cricket

Indoor cricket resumed for Chingford Cricket Club in 2021/22 on Saturday Mornings following a gap of many years. Previously Chingford were winners of the Metropolitan Essex Indoor League in 1991/2 and winners of the Waltham Abbey Indoor League in 2007/8, 2010/11 and 2012/3. The Club for many years also took part in the British Airways Trophy held at Fort Regent in St. Helier, Jersey which formed the basis of a Winter Tour.

The 2023/24 indoor season is already underway and we have entered 2 team into the Metropolitan Essex District Cricket Board Adult Indoor Cricket League. Our A team will be competing in Division 2 at the Leyton Hub, while our B team will be participating in Division 4 at the Pastures Youth Centre. If you are interested in playing, please reach out to Stephen Thorne. We welcome new players and the opportunity for continued growth and success.

Results can be found on the Fixtures Tab and Statistics on the Stats Tab.

Report on Season 2022/2023 by Stephen Thorne:

In the initial league format, our team finished in 5th place. We achieved 2 victories against Sankalp and West Essex, experienced 4 losses to Frenford, Ilford Catholics, Wanstead & Snaresbrook and Goodmayes United and had 1 conceded match against Woodford Green. Despite this mixed performance, it was evident that we had the potential for improvement, accumulating a total of 51 points.

To wrap up the indoor season, we participated in a mini league competition alongside West Essex, Woodford Green and Sankalp. We emerged victorious in all matches against these opponents, securing 1st place in this mini league.

Here's a breakdown of our leading run-scorers and wicket-takers for the season:

Batting:

Nick van Arkel: 130 runs

Ross Simmons: 108 runs

Bernard Storm: 77 runs

Bowling:

Scott Prestedge: 8 wickets

Ross Simmons: 7 wickets

Nick van Arkel: 6 wickets

Report on Season 2021/2022 by Stephen Thorne:

After several years of absence from the indoor cricket scene, we entered a team into the Metropolitan Essex District Cricket Board's Saturday League.

We were placed in the bottom league (Division 5) with matches being played at The Pastures Youth Centre in Leytonstone.

In our first match, with many of our players having minimal indoor experience; we managed to bowl out Goodmayes United for 62 in 9.1 overs with Scott Prestedge returning figures of 2-0-9-3 along with a run out; we successfully chase this down for the lost of 2 wickets with extras being the top score with 33 (1 bye, 2 leg byes, 29 wides and 1 no ball).

In our second match, we narrowly lost to Wanstead & Snaresbrook by 6 runs after a valiant effort with the bat from Lewis Dixon with 62 not out with 4 sixes in the last over.

All our other matches against weaker/unexperienced opposition were pretty much a non-contest with us winning 4 of these; however our fourth match against Walthamstow (who went onto win the initial league format, unbeaten with 6 wins and 1 tie) beat us by 32 runs with their captain and opening batsman scoring 82 not out; our top scorer in our innings was extras again with 42 (2 byes, 1 leg bye and 39 wides).

We finished 3rd in the initial league format with 5 wins and 2 losses.

To finish the indoor season, the top 4 in our league were entered into a play-off against Wanstead & Snaresbrook, Walthamstow and South Loughton.

After another narrowing loss by 1 wicket to Wanstead & Snaresbrook in the final over, our hopes of winning this play off were hampered but after seeking revenge on Walthamstow by defending 60 and taking the last wicket in the final over to win by 5 runs, our aspirations were renewed. This match was stream live on our Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/p/CbALYQ9hZ93/).

In the final games, with Walthamstow beating Wanstead in the game before ours, meant that if we beat South Loughton, we would win the play off.

We batted first and scored a competitive 109 all out with Usman Younas contributing with 30. We looked comfortable to win with South Loughton being 40 for 4 off 6 overs; after 9 overs they were 59 for 4, 51 to win off 3 overs; over 10 bowled by Usman Younas went for 18 with a 6 being hit off a no ball leaving 33 to win off 2 overs, over 11 bowled by Scott Prestedge went for 19 leaving 14 to win off the last over.

The last over bowled by Faizan Awan, went 1, dot, dot; leaving 13 off 3 balls; the fourth ball went for 6, leaving 7 to win off 2 balls; South Loughton hit the remaining 2 balls for 3 each, meaning that the match was tied and that we finished 2nd in the play off.

Even after a match that we should have won and that would have won us the play off; everyone who played contributed in their own way and it was a very successful first season back playing indoor cricket.

We will look upon this season as a stepping stone for the future as we have been promoted and we hope that there is more interest from others within the club to allow us to enter a second team in this competition.

We have our own Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/chingfordcc_indoor/) where score sheets have been uploaded and often games are streamed live on that platform.