1st XI Season Gets Underway in Buckinghamshire

An Alton 1st XI containing 4 debutants travelled to Home Counties side Amersham for their first outing of the season, in what proved to be a high scoring match played on an excellent wicket.

Amersham captain Andy Vineyard won the toss and elected to bat on a good looking wicket, which meant Alton had the pleasure of enduring the very cold conditions first.

Early breakthroughs by Dan Scott accounted for both openers as Amersham reached 17-2. When Hakim Peruzi replaced Ian Carpenter and removed Michael Viney (5) Amersham were 54-3 and Alton sensed that if they could grab another couple of wickets they would have their hosts on the back foot.

It wasn’t to be, however, as first Max Maciver(83 from 62 balls) and captain Vineyard added 105 for the fourth wicket and the Graham Rance (59 from 36 balls) joined Viney to add a further unbroken 143 in just over 13 overs, to mean Amersham finished on 302-4. Viney paced his innings superbly finishing unbeaten on a run a ball 127, including 10 x 4s and 7 x6s.

It was a tough first outing for the Alton bowlers but Scott and Carpenter bowled a good opening spell and Peruzi took 1-33 from his 9 over spell.

With relatively short boundaries straight and on one side, Alton went into the run chase knowing that if they could get off to a good start then victory was possible.

Alex Hammond and Ryan Covey opened up, and after a watchful start from both Hammond started to find the boundary With increasing regularity. The pair had completed a century opening stand when Covey was caught at point by Maciver off Joseph Rance for 28.

This brought Scott Myers to the crease, and despite struggling for timing early on, he and Hammond progressed at a run a ball until Hammond retired having completed his century (104 from 91 balls) with the score on 164. His century included 12 x4 and 5x6. At this stage Alton required 139 from the remaining 17 overs and the game appeared in the balance.

14 year old Jude Wright joined Myers at the crease and together they added 45 runs in 49 balls before Wright was caught behind by Kajapaksa off the spin of Maciver for 14.

Hugo Hammond was the next in and he took very little time to settle in, and he and Myers took the score to 251 before Myers retired for 62 made from 57 deliveries.

Joe Paul joined Hammond, until Hammond was caught at long on by Lines off Helm for 33 made from just 13 balls, including 3 x 6s and 3x4s.

This left Alton 5 overs to score the required 43 runs for victory and very much in the hunt.
Paul send Peruzi took tune score onto 276 before Paul was bowled by Maciver for 8, and despite Xavier Bochereau hitting his first ball for 6 he was unable to repeat the feat and Alton eventually finished up at 285-4 with Helm the pick of the bowlers for Amersham with 1-30 from his 9 overs.

So Alton move on to face Farnham next week having had a good work out and knowing that improvements are particularly required in the field and with the ball in hand