Superb bowling is the key to Shinfield’s success

Shinfield CC 1st XI (102-8) beat Woodcote 1st XI (98 all out)

A SUPERB bowling display from Shinfield saw them win their second game of the league season with a two wicket victory against Woodcote.

Woodcote won the toss and elected to bat first. The opening partnership of Ryan Lennard (28), who hit four fours, and James Wheeler (23) propelled the hosts into a strong start but the clinical Shinfield bowling attack quickly decimated what started as a promising innings.

Muhammed Hafeez picked up the first wicket of the day as wicket keeper Lennard was dismissed before Prashant Gandhi bowled Wheeler out for 23 to break the opening partnership.

Woodcote’s middle and tail end of the order were dispatched by some magnificent bowling from Hassan Safdar who finished the day with incredible bowling figures of 6-20.

Anuraag Shukla helped to keep the total to a low score with some remarkably economic bowling as he delivered four maiden overs out of the six that he bowled, only conceding two runs as well as picking up one wicket.

Three ducks proved to be costly for Woodcote as they were bowled all out after 30 overs just shy of reaching triple digits as they set Shinfield a target of 98 to catch.

Woodcote made an early breakthrough as opening batsmen Michael Page was dismissed for a duck after an lbw decision.

The bowling of Paul Knox continued to cause problems for Shinfield as Saketh Chodimella and Jay Deshmukh both fell victim of lbw decisions.

Shinfield made hard work of the target but the middle order saw them through before they surpassed the target set by their opponents with two wickets to spare to pick up their second win in as many games.

Shinfield batting: Page 0, Chodimella 12, Deshmukh 11, Rawal 1, Naseer 14, Hafeez 17, Shukla 16, Sardar 12, Gandhi 8no, Garg 5no, Safdar dnb. Shinfield bowling: Garg 0-25, Shukla 1-2, Gandhi 1-36, Hafeez 1-13, Safdar 6-20.