On the week of the Queens Jubilee, there was serious matters at hand as the first team hosted Sully Spartans at the Western Field and the seconds travelled down the a470 to play Whitchurch Heath.

But first, on Thursday afternoon, we had a Bank Holiday thriller at The Western Field as we hosted Division 2 Criegiau in the Macey Cup 20/20 competition.

We batted first and posted an under par score of 136 which was very disappointing having been 110/2 at one stage. Rhys Weeks scored 58 and Grant Blacker 27.

In reply, Creigiau scraped home in the final over to win by 5 wickets. Grant Blacker the pick of the home sides bowling with 4/29 from his 4 overs.

Yesterday, at a very windy Hopkinstown, home skipper Gareth Hughes won the toss and asked our visitors to have a bat. Sully Spartans started like a train, smashing the ball to all parts. Ed Smart come on early to see if he could steady the ship and returned figures of 2/47 off his 9 over spell. Replacing Ed was Jonny Powell who also bowled a fine spell with figures of 1/49 off his allotted 9 overs. Ross Tyler took 2/77. There’s not much else to write home about in regards to bowling and fielding where we were very poor on the day, dropping 9 catches and missed stumpings. One of our players said afterwards “we probably gave them 100 runs in the field!!” which summed it up perfectly. Along with our poor performance, Sully Spartans did bat very well and put on a massive score of 400/7. Sometimes you’ve got to tip the cap and say well played. Some massive blows but also some lovely cricket shots provided a very challenging score for us to chase down.

With nothing to lose and our intent was to have a go in reply, we lost early wickets and the only real contributions were from Jonny Powell and Greg Deane who put on a 100 partnership for the 7^th wicket. Greg bludgeoned the ball with some big 6s but was weirdly run out for a well made 58 as Jonny played a more conservative knock against the very good Sully Spartans pair of leg spinners. Rhys Phillips came in at no.10 after hurting his ham string last weekend scoring a quick fire 24 but when Jonny Powell was the last man to go for 42 we were bowled out for 221 in the 39^th over. Sully wining by 179 runs.

Sully Spartans leap frog us into top of the league spot on 104 points as we sit in second with 103. Still a very long way to go and with everything still to play for.

The seconds bowled first at Whitchurch and restricted the home team to 118/9. Callum Davies and Shaun Mactear opened the bowling and after the pair bowled their 16 overs between them, Whitchuch had only 27 on the scoreboard. Regan Fear continued his fine form with the ball as he picked up 4/36 and Nicky Phillips 3/33 and as Whitchurch struggled to get any momentum in their innings.

The seconds cruised to victory and only lost 2 wickets as Nilo scored 39 at the top of the order and then skipper Geraint Weeks and Nicky Phillips saw the visitors home with 35* and 33*.

Another cracking win for the seconds who pick up a full 20 points and stay second in the league.

There were some lovely shots taken on the day at the cricket club - Credit - David Evans.