EMMBROOK and Bearwood fell to a 55-run defeat against Cadmore End in a high scoring contest.
Emmbrook and Bearwood won the toss and elected to field first. They made a fast breakthrough as Matt Howarth claimed his first wicket of the afternoon to dismiss Luke Pollard for a duck as he was caught out by Alistair Fairhead.
It wasn’t long before Emmbrook gained their second wicket of the innings as A D Sheizad fell for just four runs with Abhijeet Shinde catching him out from the bowling of Richard Cole.
Howarth then added another wicket to his tally as Fairhead claimed his second catch of the innings to dismiss Hameed for four runs.
But opening batsmen Babar Ali proved tricky to remove as he hit his way to a half-century before he was eventually dismissed on 54 runs.
However, Cadmore managed to form a superb partnership with Haroon Qayyum and Rashif at the crease which ultimately turned out to be the difference between the two sides.
Qayyum knocked a century for Cadmore from 88 balls before he eventually lost his wicket from the bowling of Alex Cobb. He was partnered by a tremendous innings by Rashid as he smashed a rapid century of runs, scoring nine fours and an incredible ten sixes in the process.
Howard Howarth bowling
Despite removing both of the century scorers, the damage was already inflicted as Cadmore posted a very strong total of 301 from 44 overs for Emmbrook and Bearwood to chase.
With a big score to chase, Cadmore condemned Emmbrook to a disappointing start to the innings as they dismissed captain Alex Cobb for eight runs.
Sanjeev Jain and Alistair Fairhead formed a decent partnership to get Emmbrook’s innings back on track but the bowling of Luqman first dismissed Jain for 32 runs before removing Fairhead for 42.
Emmbrook batted a determined innings as they looked to chase down the total as Imran Khan posted 37 runs and Andrew Robertson top scored with 41.
They would eventually fall 55 runs short of the target set by Cadmore. Despite several strong innings from the Emmbrook and Bearwood order, they were eventually all out for 246 after 44.4 overs as the visitors picked up the points.
“It was a disappointing defeat but hopefully one we can learn from,” said Emmbrook and Bearwood captain Alex Cobb.
“When you’ve been smashed to all parts in the field, it’s easy to let your head drop and collapse when batting, so I’m proud of the fact that we gave the chase a good go.
“We could have taken a couple more early wickets but it was just one of those days where the ball didn’t go to hand when we needed it to. There were also great performances from Harry and TJ, who despite both being young colts, didn’t look out of place playing a good standard of cricket.
“We had a great number of knocks in our innings but our main problem was getting caught behind the run rate. When you’re needing to score over a run a ball, you’re needing to take more risks.”
Cobb is hopeful that his side can return to winning ways at the weekend when they travel away to face Bradenham.
“We need to go back to basics and all do ours jobs with bat and ball. I can’t see it being a particularly high scoring game with the weather we’ve had this week, so the team that’s best able to apply themselves and a graft out a score will win the game.”
Emmbrook and Bearwood batting: Cobb 8, Jain 32, Fairhead 42, Khan 37, Prathamesh 26, Robertson 41, M Howarth 4, Cole 10, Shinde 31no, Wells 1, H Howarth 3.
Emmbrook and Bearwood bowling: M Howarth 3-65, Cole 1-35, H Howarth 0-26, Cobb 2-43, Prathamesh 0-31, Wells 1-22, Fairhead 2-47, Jain 0-19.
