LMV 2nds rounded off their Chess Valley League Division 2 campaign in some style, beating a strong Stanmore Warriors side by 3 wickets at Potters Bar CC.

Bowling first, LMV took a couple of early wickets aided by some excellent spin bowling from Jack Rose and Lior Heyman. This brought Stanmore's gun batsman to the crease - Mohammed Rizvi (ex Vale junior coach) and he showed his class hitting two massive switch hit sixes and getting to his 50 with ease. Fortunately for LMV, Rafi Saville was by now into his work as a bowler and a great piece of wicket keeping standing up by Ben Musikant accounted for Rizvi for 70. Stanmore closed their 45 overs on 263-6 with Rafi Saville taking 4-50.

In reply, despite a good start and Freddie Katzenellenbogen in his first Vale game for 2 years looking in great touch, LMV lost regular wickets and at 130-6 looked dead and buried. Enter Rafi Saville who had other ideas and with Freddie (can't keep typing his surname...) set about the Stanmore spinners with relish. Both played beautifully and took LMV home with nearly 2 overs to spare on 264-6, Saville finishing on 70 not out and, fittingly, Freddie hitting the winning run to complete his century and finish on 100 not out.

A great win leaving LMV 2s in 5th (out of 10) in Division 2, matching the 1sts finish in Division 1, and again achieved with a strong U21 contingent (8 out of the 11 on show), testament to what the club is trying to achieve in bringing on all of our younger talent through the ranks.

Over at Hemel Hempstead, our Development team lead by messrs Brand and Spooner took on the home side and scored 159-8 off their 40 overs with Avi Baker top scoring on 37 and Elliott Kennedy - just 14 years old - scoring an excellent 26 not out. In response, 4-20 from Jacob Cowan and 2-27 from Yoni Laitner had Hemel on the ropes at 109-8, but a strong 9th wicket partnership ultimately took Hemel home.

Please look out for some important announcements about forthcoming matches and Junior training coming v soon!...