16th August 2025 - HBCC 1st XI vs St Chad’s CC (H)

1st Innings

St chads bat first 

Arslan bowled arguably his finest spell of the season, finding the edge consistently of their opening batsmen. Andy took a worldie at second slip, setting the standards for Horbury as their number 1 batsman was gone. His opening partner came to only play one way, and after Josh got into his head about playing another big shot, he nicked one to third man where Arslan just about held on and we were in the game.  

Their middle order put up a fight and got some starts, until T Worm came on and found the nick first ball after new first slipper Josh was moved into gully. Worm was bowling as well as he had bowled all summer too, with the keeper not doing him any favours with a dropped catch. K Baig won him round though at the end of the game. He removed their #3 with young Alex nonchalantly taking the catch at mid off where the whole team looked on nervously. A Waterson was having one of his finer days in the field too, adjusting the field accordingly and having the right men in the right place. He cleaned up 3 batsman and gave the keeper a chance to redeem himself by taking the batsman he dropped earlier. B Terry only got the one wicket but we were all delighted to see him get the lad who took the game away from us in the reverse fixture LBW plumb in front. 

On reflection, I thought the bowling turned up on one of the biggest games of our season and absolutely did their job, with A Waterson’s changes paying off with his field placings for different batsman helping us keep the scoring down. Unfortunately there were a couple of tough dropped catches, which if they went our way, we’d be chasing closer to 150, rather than 180 but at the half way stage, it was pretty unanimous in the dressing room, after the batting performances we’ve had this year, it’d be disappointing not to chase this down.  

2nd innings 

Again, our opening partnership gave us a solid start. Josh playing shot of the day, a straight drive down the ground and Ben picking up a couple of boundaries himself. Josh was unlucky to be given lbw as we all heard bat first. Their left arm seamer rattled through the middle order picking up a fifer and HB unable to get any sort of partnership going. Andy top scored with 20 and Fiz made a quick fire 17, showing how much our batting didn’t show up. A couple of run out shouts were turned down and we were fortunate to have them knocked back by the umpires who had a decent day, albeit with some strange comments from one of them who was very eager to come and kiss K Baig’s private parts after he got hit from J Waring’s bowling. They stayed back for some drinks after the game which was nice…until they had to shoot off as the other umpire got a call from his partner. He was eager to get away, with it seeming like she wanted him to come and kiss her private parts. Good for you Colin.  

Big game next week against promotion chasers Glasshoughton, a must win if we want to have any chance of guaranteeing promotion

Report by K Baig