DESPITE suffering a double defeat in their NCCA T20 double-header against Cornwall at St Austell, Herefordshire have still qualified for the Super-12 section of the competition on August 3.
Although Herefordshire were twice beaten, Wiltshire, who could have taken the third qualifying place from the group along with Cornwall and Dorset, won only one of their two matches against Dorset and Herefordshire’s superior net run-rate carried them through.
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Drizzle and light rain prevented a prompt start at St Austell in the first match which had to be reduced to 16 overs a side.
When play did get under way, Herefordshire skipper Ollie Walker won the toss and invited the hosts to bat first and with Alex Bone (35) and Will MacVicar (38) batting well, Cornwall had reached 60-2 by the end of the sixth over.
But Hasan Mahmood put a brake on the scoring to good effect and also became only the second Herefordshire player to bag a five-wicket haul in the history of the competition as he finished with 5-21 from his three overs.
The only other Herefordshire player to claim a ‘five-for’, James Rudge, helped Hasan to his own personal milestone with two catches off his bowling, as well as another off Imaad Mahmood (1-38).
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Wicketkeeper Luke Powell was also in excellent form with a brilliant catch, two stumpings and a run-out, while Cyrus Shafi (2-26) picked up the other two wickets.
In reply, Herefordshire were never really up with the rate and although Walker (33), Powell (21), Luke Tulacz (20 not out), Rudge (18) and Shafi (16) all reached double figures Herefordshire went down by 15 runs.
In the second match, Walker led from the front with a brilliant 77 off 60 balls and with useful contributions from Sinel Gunarathne (24), Shafi (19), Hasan (15) and Powell (14, Herefordshire racked up 175-6.
But, although Herefordshire made them fight all the way, Cornwall had their own trump card in Will MacVicar whose unbeaten 81 steered them home by two wickets with three balls to spare.
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Rudge (2-21), Hasan (2-25), Walker (2-39) and Shafi (1-30) collected wickets for Herefordshire.
Herefordshire Women are in action this Sunday when they take on Northumberland in double header at Hereford’s Pentland gardens.
The first game is due to start at 11am before the teams play again at 3pm.
There were two presentations made at Herefordshire’s match with Devon at Eastnor recently to mark outstanding individual achievements.
Herefordshire Cricket Ltd’s president Nick Nenadich presented a pair of county cufflinks and a county badge to Phil Mellish who has been named as England’s scorer for the current Test match against India at Edgbaston.
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And a similar presentation was made to all-rounder James Rudge to mark his return of 5-10 against Wiltshire, the best figures ever by a Herefordshire bowler in the NCCA T20 competition.
To round off the presentations, Herefordshire Cricket’s general manager Richard Cox presented a county cap to Cyrus Shafi, who made his competitive debut against Devon.
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