Herts League: Charlie Randall leads Knebworth Park to victory

His unbeaten 101 was his second ton in three weeks and was a marathon effort on a surface where batting was never easy.

After losing the early wickets of Kobe Richmond and Rob Morley, Randall and opening bat Louis Champion, who also batted superbly with a hard fought 63, struck 120 for the third wicket.

Skipper Matt Hutchinson's 31 helped take the total on to 183 but Randall, with valuable support from Niels Hart patient eight helped add 52 for the eighth wicket, eventually got them 243-9.

And there was no rest for Randall as he opened up the bowling with Richmond, and the pair immediately had the home side struggling with a wicket each in the opening two overs.

Randall would finish with 4-34 as Flitwick slumped to 76-6 and, after a brief recovery, Alex Richmond and Hutchinson bagged two apiece to mop up the tail and bowl them out for 138.

Rob Slack hit 97 to help give the thirds their first win of the season, beating Stevenage.

He and Adam Hassall (37) put on 128 for the third wicket before a quick 50 from Jonathan Cirkel and 22 for Richard Wheeler took them to 234-7. 

Troy Keartland's wonder delivery remove Stevenage's opener on the first ball and set the stage for the reply.

Drew Myles took two wickets, as did U13 spinner Finn Hobbs as Stevenage finished 112 runs short.

The seconds couldn't complete the winning sequence though as they lost by five wickets to Hertford.

James Bedford top scored with 28 in their 165 and despite a wicket in the second over, and reducing the visitors to 50-4, Hertford only lost one further wicket.

Ickleford were well beaten by a strong Lutonian side in Division Two A.

They had batted first but their total of 193 was well below par on a good wicket with a fast outfield.

Sam Giggle made 22 but for the second week running the pick of the batsmen was Jak Phillips with an assured 64.

Unfortunately nobody stuck around with him, Tom Willoughby with 16 the next best score.

Ickleford did benefit from 38 extras including no less than 28 wides.

The Lutonian openers treated it more like a 20/20 game with Asad Rasheed scoring 68 in 43 overs.

Sam Draper took 3-51 and George Crouch deserved better than his 2-39 but the aggressive Lutonian batting continued to score quickly and eased home by five wickets to leave Ickleford bottom of the table.

The seconds had a difficult day at Northwood, losing by 136 runs.

Winning the toss, they regretted asking Northwood to bat first as they reached 150-0 in 25 overs, eventually finishing on 324-7.

Faisal Khan took 2-58 and the Ickleford reply started in good fashion, 68-0 in seven overs.

Fakhar Islam made 24 and Harry Saunders a maiden second-team team 50 with 58, but with wickets starting to fall, the run rate disappeared into the distance and they were all out for 188.

The thirds kept up their winning run with a well paced run chase at Welwyn Garden City.

The home side made 181-6, recovering from 18-3 and 2-8 in eight overs from Asjid Hussain.

Matteo Peareth (27) and David Pursey (32) got Ickleford off to a good start which was followed up by a classy 50 from Duncan Jenner, despite nursing a calf strain, and 47 not out from Bharat Puttur.

That took Ickleford to victory with 15 balls to go.

Stevenage earned a 71-run victory over Harpenden, in part thanks to 66 from David Carr and 51 for Michael Tyler.

Mike Philpotts then took 4-31, while there was 3-46 from Manohar Kosaraju and 2-31 for Tyler.

In Division One, both Letchworth and Hitchin lost.

Letchworth went down by 83 runs against Chorleywood, David Sprittles and David Albon both managing three wickets while Nathan Sprittles finished unbeaten on 48.

Hitchin were beaten by 29 runs against Old Elizabethans.

Shaftab Khalid finished on 101 not out but ran out of partners in the run chase. Duncan Howells had earlier taken 3-48.

Preston lost in the Championship too, beaten by 40 runs against St Albans despite 5-87 from Peter Murrell.

Daniel Scholz also managed three wickets while Ed Wharton scored 56.