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 2024/25 indoor cricket season is now in full swing and we’re excited to announce that we have entered three teams into the Metropolitan Essex District Cricket Board Adult Indoor Cricket League.
A Team: Competing in Division 3 at the Leyton Hub
B Team: Competing in Division 4 at the Pastures Youth Centre
C Team: Competing in Division 5 at the Pastures Youth Centre
We are always looking for new players to join us, so if you’re interested in participating, please get in touch with Stephen Thorne. New members are warmly welcomed as we continue to build on our success and grow the club.
Results can be found on the Fixtures Tab and Statistics on the Stats Tab.
Report on Season 2023/24 by Stephen Thorne:
Last season saw us expand our involvement in the Metropolitan Essex District Cricket Board Adult Indoor Cricket League with the introduction of a second team.
A Team: Captained by Ross Simmons, the team featured regulars such as Shehzad Hussain, Ali Butt, Lewis Dixon, Scott Prestedge and Faizan Awan. Stephen Thorne and Tomas Biswas made occasional appearances. Competing in Division 2 against clubs like GB Strikers, South Loughton, Frenford, Hornchurch Athletic and Wanstead & Snaresbrook at the Leyton Hub, the A team finished 5th with 2 wins, collecting 55 points from 10 matches.
B Team: Led by captain Nick van Arkel, the B team’s core players included Raja Tariq, Bernard Storm, Bilal Ahmed, Abdul Jedran and Zaen Aasaf. The team also saw contributions from Monsh Shastri, Micky Driver, Ehsen Shah and Benick van Arkel. Playing in Division 4 at the Pastures Youth Centre, they competed against teams such as Loughton, Icon, Wanstead & Snaresbrook, Goodmayes United, Walthamstow, Spartans and Sankalp. The B team finished 5th in their division with 4 wins and 58 points from 7 matches.
Additionally, the B team participated in a mini-league with Walthamstow, Sankalp and Spartans to complete a 10-match season, emerging victorious in all encounters and securing 1st place in the mini-league.
The season concluded with an indoor cup competition at the Pastures Youth Centre. Despite a strong effort in the group stage, we were unable to advance to the final stages.
Report on Season 2022/2023 by Stephen Thorne:
We participated in the Metropolitan Essex District Cricket Board Division 4, having secured a promotion from Division 5 in the previous season. This season also saw the introduction of new players, Bernard Storm and Nick van Arkel, into our squad.
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 chased this down for the loss 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 on to 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 streamed live on our Instagram page (Watch Here).
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 (Follow Us) where score sheets have been uploaded and often games are streamed live on that platform.