Tring Park CC took the short journey to the meadow on Wednesday night to play in the preliminary round of the Heath Park Cup. Captain Chapman won the toss and elected to bat first on a pitch that was still a bit soft due to the weather we’d received over the last 2 weeks.

Jack Randall and debutant Jordan Butcher opened up for NCC and Randall got us off to strong start hitting three 4s in the opening exchanges. Momentum was quickly stopped when opening bowler Weymes removed both openers with the score on 24-2.

This is brought Mark Hobley and the returning Tommy Garraway to the crease and they looked to rebuild the innings and get NCC to a competitive total. With the pitch playing a tad slow and the ball not coming onto the bat along with the Tring bowlers hitting good areas, boundaries were at a premium.

Hobley and Garraway were rotating the strike well and started to build a partnership, Hobley would fall for 16 in the 10th over with the score on 56-3.

At the halfway point of NCC’s innings Tring would’ve been the happier of the two sides but with the dangerous Garraway at the crease a good total was still on the cards. George Liveing joined Garraway like it was peak 2013 again. Garraway began stepping through the gears hitting two massive 6s including one over cover.

With Liveing playing the supporting role in a partnership of 76, it took NCC to a defendable 132 with Liveing finishing 26* off 32 and Garraway 55* off 51. However, the feeling amongst the NCC players were that they were about 15/20 short of a really good total.

New Australian Harrison Holmes opened the bowling and looked to make early inroads into the Tring batting lineup. However, it wasn’t a piece of bowling that would start NCC on the right track but a brilliant piece of fielding from Butch. The Tring overseas player obviously didn’t realise that Jordan had a rocket for an arm and precisely hit Randall’s gloves to run out the Tring overseas Hayman for 1.

This brought the dangerous Doodson to the crease and he started his innings with a crunching cover drive for 4 third ball of his innings. Chapman would take the responsibility of opening the bowling and started off tight going for just 4 in his first over. Tring were 16-1 after 3 overs, yet would have a good over in the 4th thanks to some strong sweeps by Dixon and some poor fielding (sorry skip) allowed Tring to race onto 31-1 from 4 overs.

Harrison would pick up the big wicket of Doodson trying to cut the ball over the top and picking out Johnson at backward point. Garraway and Johnson would replace the two openers, Johnson was punished by Dixon before getting the last laugh and removing the Tring opener for a well made 32 off 20 deliveries. 51-3 off 8 overs requiring 81 off the remaining 12 overs, game on!

Ludlow and B.Criddle would look to rebuild the innings through playing low-risk cricket and picking up singles and twos while taking advantage of any loose deliveries. Ludlow dispatching Johnson for a massive 6 the pick of the boundaries.

Chapman returned to the pavilion end with wickets much needed to give Church any hope of winning the game and he delivered. Chapman removed Ludlow for 15 when he got a thick edge to Holmes at short third man, this brought Weymes to the crease who would only last the remaining 4 balls of the over after just clearing the rope the ball before.

Obviously, the Tring number 6 didn’t know what the whole ground knew that Chapman’s quicker ball was coming and he wandered down the pitch and was stumped by Randall. 82-5 off 12 and the game was well and truly alive, Johnson finished his spell only going for 13 in his remaining 3 overs.

Chapman would remove Avhad in his following over but with B.Criddle still set in the middle Tring were still favourites. Chapman finished with figures of 5-0-44-3 and was unlucky to go for as many as he did but his wickets were invaluable. 17 overs gone 120-6, 13 needed off 3 overs.

Garraway would go for 6 singles in the 18th but that’s all Tring needed to do, 7 off 12 deliveries. Holmes would give Church a glimmer of hope by sending the middle stump of B.Criddle flying, ending his potential match-winning knock of 38 off 28. Holmes would keep the rest of the over tight until Shearman threaded the ball through the covers for 4 and getting his team all but over the line.

With the WASP percentage on 99.5 percent in favour of Tring, Garraway would have the task of defending 1 off the last over. Ball 1 saw R.Criddle try to end the game early in the over and his backfoot came out of his crease and was stumped for 12.

Ball 2 Gurnett played and missed, ball 3 Gurnett blocked the ball and was called through for a single but the quick reactions of Randall who was brilliant all evening with the gloves rolled the ball to Garraway with took the bails off.

1 needed off 3 now and the pressure was really on. Ball 4 Shearman played and missed, ball 5 Shearman blocked the ball and no run was attempted.

After 2 and a half hours of cricket and 264 runs scored equally between the two teams, it came down to the last ball of the match. A tie would mean Northchurch win on fewer wickets lost and Tring a single to win the game outright.

The Northchurch infield was as tight as possible and Shearman would only need to get some bat on the ball to beat it. Ball 6 Garraway took his four-step run up and darted the ball down and BOWLED HIM. Cue the celebrations, all XI players in the middle jumping on each other in pure jubilation and many of the players saying it was most unbelievable game of cricket they had ever played in.

Highlights
Tommy Garraway – 55* off 51 & 5-1-22-2
George Liveing – 26* off 32
Harrison Holmes – 5-0-29-2
Harry Chapman – 5-0-43-3
Ollie Johnson – 5-0-34-1
Jack Randall – 2 stumpings and a run out.

We are due to play Chipperfield on 23rd May at NCC, which has all the ingredients to be a thriller too.