Opening day defeats for Earl Shilton Town 1st and 2nd XI

EARL Shilton Town CC opened their league campaign with two close fought defeats, with the 1st XI away against Leicester Banks 1st XI and the 2nd XI at home to Bardon Hill 2nd XI.

The 1st XI lost the toss and Leicester Banks elected to bat first.

A great display of opening bowling from Phil Crouch and Tom Verow saw the team off to a great start with Banks on 8-2.

Banks recovered well with N Savjani steadying the ship with a knock of 85 not out and Rahul Tandel hitting 109, before being caught by Phil Crouch off the bowling of Sam Smart.

Banks finished on 269-6 wickets off 45 overs.

Earl Shilton started well with James Lester hitting 37 from 33 balls with new signing Rishabh Parekh making 48 and Pavan Singh 56, but unfortunately both departed leaving Earl Shilton needing seven an over with only a few wickets in hand.

Zak Potter 23, Sam Smart 19, and Evan Donaldson 19, worked hard to chase down the total but in the end Evan and Josh Robins managed to bat out the remainder of the 45 overs falling to a 20 runs defeat, finishing on 249-9 off 45 overs.

The 2nd XI won the toss and decided to bowl first after a tremendous pre-season chase the week before against Ivanhoe 4th XI.

Tom Kirk opened the bowling with new signing Hemanth Kokkirala, getting the innings off to a steady start.

First change bowlers Ethan Hawkins and Charley Dickerson came on looking to slow the run rate and picking up three wickets between them, leaving Lauren Chamberlain and Hemanth to finish the bowling innings off and creating great momentum with four wickets falling in six overs.

Bardon Hill 2nd XI batted well and set a good total of 204 with two batsmen hitting 50 runs. Hemanth with the best bowling figures of 2-35.

Time for the run chase and Earl Shilton looked to get off to a flier, with Shiva Chopra hitting boundaries from the start until being bowled out for 14 runs.

Coming from a big pre-season total, captain Ethan Hawkins looked to carry this on, but a poor choice shot gave his wicket away too easily at 63 for 2.

Luckily Tom Kirk, Adam Garner and George Dunne steadied the ship to build the innings back up to give Earl Shilton a chance.

Requiring almost 10 runs an over in the last 5 overs, some explosive batting was needed from Dan Williams, Harry Longdon and Hemanth.

With everyone’s efforts Earl Shilton fell short by just five runs against a strong bowling attack.

Terrific attempt by all who played and Batsman of the day was Tom Kirk with 75, who was also named 2nd XI team player of the match.