Saturday Friendly
Cricket returned to Warwick Road on Saturday as the 1st XI hosted Leamington 2’s in the first game of the season. New skipper Adam Huxford won the toss and elected to field.
Leamington put on 35 for the first wicket, with Waj Chohan trapping Sargeant LBW for his first wicket of the new season. Leamington finished on 110 for 9 after 40 overs with the two highest contributors Hawkes and Randle making 19 each for the away side. With the ball, wickets were shared between four of Kenilworth’s bowlers. Waj Chohan taking one and Joe Atkinson taking 2 for 13 off his 8 overs. DPR bowled 6 overs and took 3 wickets for 25 runs. Tom Skinner however was Kenilworth’s top performer, taking an impressive 3 wickets for just 6 runs as he mopped up the tail.
In reply, Kenilworth eventually got over the line in the 39th over, in a nailbiting 1 wicket win. Kumar, opening up made 18 alongside a well battled 40 for Atkinson. Huxford made 15 along with several single figure contributions from the rest of the order. For Leamington, Vaughan took an excellent 4 for 5, with 2 for Tahir and one a piece for Esler and Randle.
A low scoring game won by Kenilworth by one wicket, but good preparation ready for the league season on Saturday.
Sunday Friendly
A second game in two days, highlighting the excellent work from the ground staff in recent weeks. Kenilworth hosted Alcester and Ragley in a 35 over friendly. Kenilworth once again won the toss and elected to bat.
Horner and Smithson made 13 and 19 respectively opening the batting for the first time this season. Boneham and Clarke also made 13 a piece with Kenilworth’s highest score of 23 not out coming from stand in keeper Matt Bain. For the visitors Taylor and Karthikeyan each took two and Turner, Hosty and Stokes each contributed 1 wicket to the scorecard. Kenilworth eventually made 125, 7 down from their 35 overs.
In reply, Alcester and Ragley managed 100 All Out from 30 overs. Tim Piper contributed with a well made 60 not out for the visitors. Taylor was the only other batsmen to make double figures for the visitors with 12. With the ball, Matt Dadswell took 1 for 13 off his 5 overs. Ben Clarke, Louis Smithson and Joe Tate took two wickets each. Sam Davies took 3 for 19 off just 4 overs in an impressive show in the field to start the year.
Kenilworth were eventual winners by 25 runs.
