Nether Heyford's Sunday side season

After a disappointing 1998 season, where the season had resulted in a string of defeats and weak batting performances. Despite two victories in the final two games in the season, confidence in the Sunday Side was low. Under the captaincy of Nick Clarke the Sunday Side and the addition of some new players, especially some younger players, Heyford looked forward to season in which they could compete with the opposition. The added practice in the winter nets was hoped to have provided players with an opportunity to fine-tune their skills and increase enthusiasm.

The opening game of the season was against strong opposition in the shape of Abington C.C, Abington batted first and made a good start with the opening batsmen scoring highly. Chris Peck bowled an excellent 20-over spell despite not picking up a wicket. In chase of good total of 136, Heyford's batsmen failed to make good progress and Abington were easily victors by 58 runs.

Mears Ashby were the next opponents, a good quality Sunday team, plenty of strong all-round players. Again the opposition batted first, posting a large total despite 4 wickets from Rob Pardon and some good bowling from Dave Payne (2 for 43) and Geoff Sturgess (2 for 22). Heyford's reply was not enough, a strong performances from Nick Clarke (41), sadly it was not enough for victory as heyford finished short of the runs at 114 for 9

The first away match of the season was against strong opponents, Dean C.C, Heyford batted first for the first time this season, the innings failed to get going and they only managed a dismal total of 69. Chris "Kit" Andrews the vice-captain took an early wicket but Heyford were convincingly beaten.

The season finally took a turn for the better, firstly against under-strength Yelvertoft C.C, Heyford batted first and knocked up a decent total of 140. Despite losing early wickets, Heyford bounced back and Nick Clarke remained in form, he scored 66. The tight bowling efforts from openers Geoff Sturgess (0 for 36) and Rob Pardon (2 for 5) having each bowled 10 overs, Yelvertoft needed 98 from the remaining 20 overs and ensured Heyford's first win of the season winning by 42 runs.

Heyford, full of confidence, went into the match Brington C.C with high hopes after narrowly being beaten by them last season. Again batting first, Nick Clarke was again in the runs with 42, his partnerships with Danny Golden (34) of 54 and another partnership of 44 with Rob Pardon (22) provided vital runs. Heyford finished up 125 all out. Pardon then went on to take 6 for 18 and some fierce bowling from James Stirling pulled Heyford to victory.

Local rivals Bugbrooke were the next opponents, Heyford were keen to continue their good form, Heyford batted first but steadily lost wickets in the top order. It was down to Thomas Whittaker (27 not out) and Nick Inwood (26) to set Bugbrooke 100 to win. Heyford's form with the ball was not on show, Bugbrooke ran out comfortable winners by 6 wickets.

Arch-rivals Collingtree were next, the match was played competitively but spirited. The wicket was artificial and was particularly difficult in the early stages. A good batting performance from Heyford left a challenging target of 159. Main contributors were Thomas Whittaker (27), Nick Inwood (31), Matt Baker (21) and Nick Clarke (22). Dave Payne (2 for 50) bowled 16 good overs and had the better of the batsmen, a good run out from the captain Clarke set Heyford on the way. In a gripping finale the Collingtree team needed some last-over luck to win by just one wicket and a ball to spare.

The picturesque setting of Old Alcovians was where Heyford Sunday team succeeded in achieving their third victory of the season. The Old Alcovians club is situated in the grounds of Castle Ashby house, with the house in the background. We were also blessed by one of the warmest, sunniest days of the year.

The match was played in different style to normal, teams batted twice for 20 overs and each player bowled 2 overs except of course the wicket-keeper, batsmen had to retire at 25. Old alcovians batted first, wickets were evenly spread yet notable bowling performances by batsmen Nick Clarke (most expensive) and Simon Legge (longest over due to wides). Over the first two innings' Old alcovians had a slight lead. There was good batting on show from Simon Legge and Thomas Whittaker in both innings' and Nick Inwood batted very well too. It was all down to Chris Andrews, the vice-captain, usually the number 11 for Heyford, promoted to number 5. Having seen wickets tumble in the middle order the situation remained at 8 runs required from 7 balls when Andrews hit a huge straight drive over the bowlers head relieving the pressure, Heyford scored the 127 runs required off 19.3 overs.

The next opponents were Spencer C.C, probably the strongest side Heyford had to face this season Spencer's 200+ run victory in the `98 season still in their memory. Heyford seemed to get on top of the opposition with early wickets from Chris Andrews (4 for 30) but Spencer batted deep down the order and scored just over the 200 mark partly due to some terrible Heyford fielding in the final 10 overs. The batting performance was excellent by Heyford's standards but finished up 50 runs short, Thomas Whittaker (33), Nick Clarke (26) and Matt Baker (20) excelled with the bat.

Heyford travelled to Badby the following week and it was guest player Chris Richmond, he scored an unbeaten 75 and was supported by Nick Inwood (30) with a stand of 53. Nick Inwood's demise was unusual yet very amusing, after a young lad of no more than 10 or 11 took his wicket the week before Inwood seemed to look in good touch. Until that was, Badby brought on a young 16-year old girl, her first bowl was to Inwood, she was a left armer and bowled slow. From the boundary we joked about Inwood's vulnerability with bowlers of this kind. Sure enough her first bowl yorked Inwood on the second bounce and took his bails off, to the joy of Heyford team. Heyford finished up with a total of 162. Heyford failed to take early wickets as Badby made a good pace with the opening bowlers, by the time the bowlers really got stuck in, the damage was done and Badby sneaked home with two overs to spare.

The last away fixture of the season was against Mears Ashby, the home match was a little one sided, improved Heyford went into the match with more optimism. It was Heyford's good fielding that made the first two wickets, the bowler and wicket-keeper worked well to take a run-out. This was followed up by superb catch in the covers by Simon Legge, Heyford took regular wickets, another excellent catch was held by ex-Mears Ashby player Dave Payne who also took 3 for 35, inexperienced cricketer Phil Skill held a couple of good catches. Mears Ashby strong batting was good enough to set a total of 169. In reply Thomas Whittaker and Nick Clarke made early pace before the spin bowlers slowed the run chase, Clarke hit a confident 43 including one magnificent straight six. Then came Dave Payne keen to perform against his old club, he batted aggressively and soon reached his half-century scoring 62, sadly despite some tremendous efforts the Heyford score finished 11 runs short.

Daventry C.C were Heyford's next opponents, Heyford beat 8-man Daventry last season and were looking to follow that up with a victory against a team with 10 Daventry men and Shaun Boyson, Heyford's youngster. Daventry batted first and immediately got the scoreboard ticking over. Finally wickets came, opening bowler Rob Pardon (4 for 32) took two wickets in the last over of his first spell, one due to a truly brilliant one-handed slip catch form guest player Nick Pont. Pont followed that up with a strong spell of spin-bowling (3 for 11) as was the spin of Julian Rice (1 for 15). The Daventry target of 150 was nonetheless challenging, Thomas Whittaker (33) on good form did well with the bat, a good first wicket stand with Paul Smith of 46 got Heyford going.Geoff Sturgess continued the flow of runs scoring 25 and solid work from Matt Baker (27 not out) saw Heyford home.

The final match of the season was as tradition has it against Abington C.C, the bowlers did the early damage and Abington were bowled out for only 84, Nick Clarke (35 not out) and Dave Payne (27) scored most the runs in their stand of 48 and despite a wavering middle order Heyford finished on top with 7 wickets down.

The season finished on a high and Heyford ended up with 5 victories from 11 fixtures, not only that, the major improvement from the previous season where Heyford were a competitive team and pushed quality sides down to the wire.

The Heyford Sunday Side watch relax by the pavilion during the Old Alcovians match.

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