Chingford Cricket Club

A Review of the 2018 Season

Results in 2018 were as follows:

The highlight of the year in one of the hottest Summers in living memory was the run in the Royal London National Cup where Chingford set a new Club record of progressing to the last 16, despite an unbelievably unkind draw in which we were drawn away from home in every single round. The nature of London based National Cup groups tend to be tough in the Regional Stages and 2018 was no exception - but we overcame a number of big teams, namely Southgate, Waltham, holders Wanstead and Finchley to reach the National Section of the Competition for the first time. On World Cup Final day we were away to all-conquering of Sussex side Roffey and performed poorly with the bat, collapsing from 44-1 to 149 all out. An early fightback with the ball had 3 Roffey wickets down for just 10 runs but only one further wicket could be claimed and we lost by 6 wickets.

As holders of the League Cup we hoped to defend out trophy but we went down in the last 16 (having posted 323) to a one-man show from Vid Yadav of Loughton as we fielded a somewhat weakened bowling side in the middle of a period of severe Cup Fixture congestion.

In the SNEL T20, where the first two rounds were now played on Spring Bank Holiday we were unlucky to be drawn to face eventual treble winners Hornchurch in the Quarter Final and went down by 5 wickets having comfortably beaten Orsett in the first round.

Following a change in League regulations, for the first time the First xi played the Saturday limited over games in coloured clothing adorned with the Gilwell Park logo on the front and with pink balls. But I do wonder quite what Bunny Swinfen would have said had he still been around to view the spectacle.…..

Jamie Porter was rewarded for his excellent form on the County circuit by being named in the England squad for two of the home test matches, but sadly did not make the final 11.

The final League position of 4^th was a very creditable achievement and if you look at Club History we have bettered this on only 2 occasions. In the 1s Alfie Taylor was the leading run scorer by some distance with 1066, followed by Alex Maskell with 663 and the emerging Andrew MacGregor with 627. Bowling wise the two left arm usual suspects stole the show with Liam Lannen recording 46 wickets and Ben MacGregor claiming 37.

In the 2s in Division 1 under Alex Stokoe, it was a season where we were never going to go up or down. If we are to return to the Premier Division in the 2s, then availability of the “big guns” is key. The fact that the side used 33 players in the campaign says it all, yet 5 players actually played 16 games or more. Paul Shawyer was top run scorer with 460 while Kishen Patel provided considerable firepower with his 8 innings yielding 357 runs. Bowling-wise the skipper led the way with 27 wickets, closely followed by leg-spinner Talal Sultan with 25.

The 3rds back in Division 2 finished fourth. A particularly poor start with none of the first 6 League games won ultimately cost them as the team found its form in the middle of the season and went into overdrive, recording seven consecutive wins but ultimately there was just too much ground to make up on the leaders, although the team came agonisingly close to achieving promotion. Ali Butt’s batting was outstanding with 1008 runs whilst the unorthodox Usman Younas contributed a very valuable 478. Bowling-wise spin twins Scott Prestedge with 26 wickets and Nishant Varshney with 25 led the way.

The 4ths under Howard Nicholson struggled badly at first, but things gradually improved as the season went on. The elusive first win in the 9^th game was inspired by a career best 124* from Michael Blake in Sahara-like conditions v Harold Wood. This sparked a rally in the second half of the season as we climbed up from bottom to eventually finish 7^th.Michael Blake was the leading run scorer with 419 followed by improving newcomer Muhammad Abdullah with 259 including a maiden century. With the ball the reliable Paul Crego picked up 26 victims, while skipper Howard Nicholson weighed in with 19.

The Sunday xi under Michael Blake had an erratic set of results. Sadly the availability from the better players when we really needed it for the Chess Valley League games wasn’t there and we finished 8^th in Division 3, without a League win on the field of play, although we came close a couple of times. Bizarrely the team saved its best performance for the end of season showpiece with our sister Club The Chinghoppers and an emphatic win for Chingford was secured in the bag before tea in an all day game! Amit Ashok led the way with 316 runs and Lewis Dixon made 312. Once again the seam bowling lacked the penetration to dismiss batsmen at the level we play so at times we failed to contain the opposition batting but at least our battery of spinners fared considerably better with Tanvir Hasan bagging 32 wickets and Talal Sultan 20.

An enjoyable Cricket Week was played in extremely hot conditions and featured a maiden century for the ever improving Ross Simmons.

The Club adopted the ECB All Stars Programme to introduce 5-8 year olds to cricket and Mark Campbell’s efforts proved a roaring success in terms of numbers of children participating.

At the AGM in March, Denise Woodland stood down as Hon. General Secretary after many years of dedicated service.

For the first time since the 1980s the Fixture Card contained advertising from local businesses, namely Gilwell Park, Spice Station, Belgique and Next Move - and the Club is grateful for their support.

The bar continued its recovery in turnover under the expert eyes of John Woodland and the substantial margins earned provides much needed finance into club coffers

Finally in the close season the Club introduced a new sport and Walking Football started up for the first time at Forest Side.