Matching have a strong side and comfortably beat SNEL Division 3 side Bentley last week whilst Harlow welcome back Sarfaraz Ahmed, Max Baulcomb and skipper Jake Messenger to the side, along with Chris Whitworth, who makes his club debut.

At the same stage last year Harlow travelled to face Matching and looked to be on for a comfortable victory whilst Gul Hassan smashed deliveries into the duck ponds for fun. His dismissal for 66 saw a horrible collapse from Harlow and 9 wickets down we looked a badly beaten side. Up stepped teenagers Abi Farooq and Paddy Matthews who contrived to add 40 for the last wicket and win us the game against all the odds.

Potentially adding a smidgen of extra spice to the contest is the rivalry generated over the winter as our respective indoor teams went at it tooth and nail to win the HECC Indoor League. Two huge late league wins saw Harlow overcome the visitors on Saturday on net run rate.

Almost certain to feature for the visitors are Steve Ward, who is an astonishingly gifted cricketer, who has such a good eye he bats indoors without pads and the ageless Simon Hartnell. Only this week I came across a First XI scorebook involving a fixture, a full 27 years ago, between Harlow and Matching (1995 season) featuring Simon playing his part in bowling his side to victory against us. Simon is a gentleman off the field and a fierce competitor on it and we look forward to welcoming him and the Matching side for what should be a very interesting game of cricket and a real pointer to how Harlow might shape up this season.

Harlow (from)

Jake Messenger (Captain)
Ben Yeats
Syed Hassan
Chris Whitworth
Max Baulcomb
Tom Garner
Gul Hassan
Abi Farooq
Harry Burton
Joe Riddell
Sarfaraz Ahmed
Paddy Matthews

(Skipper Jake pictured helping Cliff with the pitch prep earlier this week. Great work!!)