Chingford Cricket Club

A Review of the 2015 Season

In 2015, for a variety of reasons, just one year after winning the Essex League the Club experienced a record number of defeats following a significant fall in player numbers that impacted all of our teams.  Although we also welcomed a number of new players into the Club the net reduction in player availability meant that we had to withdraw our 5^th XI from the League and at times struggled to fulfil our 4^th XI fixtures. Results were as follows:

The 1^st XI was possibly least impacted although the loss of Dan Lawrence and Jamie Porter to Essex would always be irreplaceable and the non-availability of some regulars from the previous season meant that defending the Premier League title won in 2014 was always going to be difficult.  Overall the team won eight league matches and finished in fifth place.  This was a creditable performance which would have been improved upon if some of the close losses could have been reversed.  Alfie Taylor (including 109 v Brentwood and 101 v Colchester), Jack Potticary, and 19 year old Australian overseas Jack Preddey (including 109 v Buckhurst Hill) and Mubashar Hassan (including 105 v Chelmsford) each scored over four hundred runs whilst Ben MacGregor (32 wickets including 6-36 v South Woodford), Alfie Taylor (17 wickets) and Liam Lannen (14 wickets) led the way with the ball.  Lenny Daniels, in one of his rare appearances, took 6-46 against Ilford.  Two players (Mubashar Hassan and Ben MacGregor) took hat-tricks in different matches against South Woodford.

The 1^st XI also put together a decent run in the League Cup before losing to Brentwood in the semi-final. In the National we had a bye in the first round before bowing out at home to Finchley who amassed 356 batting first.

In the Essex T20 we comfortably won our group with straightforward wins over Hainault and Clayhall, Fives and Heronians and West Essex before losing at South Woodford in a low scoring quarter final which was played in near darkness throughout.

The 2^nd XI was much weaker than in previous seasons but managed to win six league matches, sufficient to finish seventh in the Premier Division.  The batting was heavily reliant on Paul Shawyer (583 runs), Malik Kashif Jamal (487 runs) and Jamie Hill (321 runs including 117 v Woodford Wells) with useful contributions from Joe Samuel.  However the most impressive performance was from 14 year old Alex Agedah who produced several high-class, mature innings including four fifties which aggregated 379 runs @ 63.17.  The main wicket-takers were Richard Offord, skipper Neil Dial and Richard MacGregor; the latter two signing off from Chingford CC due to moving away and retirement respectively.  However the season saw a number of young players begin to push into the 2^nd XI such as Douglas Leung, Ed Smith and Harry Samuel.

The 3^rd XI was relegated from Division One winning only two matches.  The team were hugely impacted by having several players called into the 2^nd XI each week as well as the non-availability of some key players from prior seasons.  Only Ameetab Ashok and skipper Jack Bassett scored over 300 runs whilst the leading wicket-takers were Faizan Awan and young off-spinner James Bridge who took 6-16 v Upminster and 5-90 v Loughton.

The 4^th XI was largely comprised of the previous year’s 5^th XI which unsurprisingly led to relegation from the Premier Division.  This mismatch made for a difficult season for the players and only one game was won all year.  Jamil Akhtar (481 runs), Michael Blake (297 runs) and Nigel Errington (259 runs) led the batting.  Howard Nicholson (22 wickets including 6-59 v Harlow and 5-38 v Leigh on Sea) and Carey Harborne (20 wickets including 6-65 v Brentwood) led the bowling supported by Ross Simmons and promising young off-spinner Lewis Dixon

It was anticipated that there would be little availability from many of the Club’s better players to play two games per weekend so reluctantly we disbanded the Sunday A eleven. As a result the Chess Valley League placed the Sunday B team up into Division 4 and 6 league games were won and 4^th place secured. Alfie Taylor’s incredible 149* and 4-28 v St John’s Wood won him the Rose Bowl and he scored 532 runs at 106 while Jack Preddey hit 710, including 141* in the demolition of London Maccabi Vale. Regulars Rezwan Rehman (854), David Humphreys (465) and Michael Blake(453) all contributed well to ensure the side were never short of runs. With the ball  Jack Preddey took the honours with 21 wickets, ably backed up by Andy MacGregor and Umar Mirza with 17 apiece.