Hayes brush Wooburn aside to hit top spot
New league leaders thrash bottom side by seven wickets
IN-FORM Hayes thrashed Wooburn Narkovians by seven wickets to leap to the top of Thames Valley Cricket League Division 3B.
Narkovians sit bottom of the league standings and for good reason on this showing as the new leaders got the job done with little trouble.
And other results went in their favour as both title rivals Amersham and Bagshot only managed draws in their respective games to lose ground in the race.
The day had started with captain Shahbaz Haider losing the toss for the sixth game running as Wooburn decided to bat first.
However, Hayes’ opening pair of Billy Moone and Ramneek Madial hit the ground running from the off by taking a wicket apiece.
Some excellent line and length bowling from the pair built pressure, with Moone taking another sharp caught and bowled to add to his collection of catches.
Leading wicket taker Kulvinder Singh was brought into the attack and took his customary wicket in the first over by having Wooburn’s danger man caught at mid-on by Haider.
Madial from the other end was into a long opening spell and removed another with a booming in swinger to rattle the stumps before reducing Narkovians further.
Six wickets down for 80 runs at the drinks interval left Wooburn facing an uphill task.
Singh became the first bowler in the league to take his 50th wicket of the season as the wickets continued to tumble after the restart and Narkovians were all out for 85.
Despite Hayes requiring just 99 runs for victory, they were soon in trouble when losing early wickets for the fifth game running to leave the score on 20-3 with Wooburn tails up.
However, Hayes have been resilient during their eight-game unbeaten streak and showed it again as Pyare Sidhu kept the scoreboard ticking along.
Gagan Sharma, at the other end, has played a crucial role since returning to first team duties by combining his solid defence with the ability to manoeuvre the ball around both unsettling bowlers as well as rotating the strike.
The running between the pair was subsequently sharp with plenty of doubles and triples on show, taking Hayes home to victory with over 40 overs to spare.
With three games to go there is a real feeling amongst the Hayes team that something special is possible in their challenge for the silverware.