The 1’s travelled to Leicester Ivanhoe with experience a plenty, welcoming Josh Cobb into the XI and Matt Craven back from his hiatus. The skipper, Darren Shaw, won the toss and elected to bat. Cobby and Sunny Patel shared a stand of 111 for the first wicket, before Cobby and Craves racked up the runs. Cobby departed with a magnificent 124, Craves for 113 as KCC racked up 365 for 5.

In reply, the KCC attack led by the evergreen Matthew Bashford bowled Ivanhoe out for 93 to pick up the 25 points and win by 272 runs. The wickets were shared around David Whitmore with pick with 3-16.

The 2’s hosted Ivanhoe 2’s with new skipper Waheed Safi leading the team this year. His first job as skipper was to lose the toss and see KCC bowling. A controlled performance in the field saw Ivanhoe set KCC 227 to win. The returning Richard Jackson taking 3 wickets.

Mahang Patel and Rickesh Patel set the platform in reply, with Mahang scoring 51 and Ricks 60 as KCC comfortably chipped away. A couple of wickets lead to Ivanhoe having a sniff when reducing KCC to 154/5, but Luke Spence bludgeoned a quick 48 support by Bhavik Patel leading KCC to win by 5 wickets with 6 overs to spare.

Sam Pounds and his troops entertained Queniborough on the bottom deck batting first and setting the opposition 230 to win. John Hanger scoring 60 and contributions from Chris Clapham, Dips Patel, Benny Bashford and a couple of maximums from Steve Thompson helping.

The reply from Queniborough was over before it had started. Musa Malik and Ellis Hanger opening the attacked and took four of the first five wickets to fall for low scores. ‘Elvis’ Hanger as written in the book, finished with 3-4 in his six overs in his MOTM performance as the opposition were bowled out for 128.

The 4th team travelled to Uppingham to play Leicester University staff but were only able to pick up 9 points despite an encouraging performance that saw league debuts for many & a couple of comebacks for some. Having had the opposition 117-6, Ed Wall taking 4-29, some big hitting in a 7th wicket partnership saw Uni staff reach 233 from 40 overs.

Ben Matthew, playing his first game in a few years scored 83 in reply, but despite others getting starts, KCC were defeated by 36 runs against a much more experienced side. Honourable mentions for Oliver Stone, Jake Long and Albert Pennelli making the step from junior to senior cricket this season and contributing immediately.

Good luck to KCC women’s team today in their super 8 campaign at home. Anyone fancying a couple of drinks in the sun is welcome to watch from the balcony.