Sawbridgeworth 3rd XI opened the league season with a win at Town Fields against Ardeley Walkern.

On a beautiful sunny day, Sawbo won the toss and elected to bat on what looked a decent pitch. A wicket in the first over was not the start they were looking for, but Josh Ramsay and Kieran Morgan put on the first of three 50 run partnerships in the innings, before Ramsay was run out for 15. Another quick wicket left Sawbo 57 for 3 after 9 overs. Andrew Foster then joined Morgan and they put on 61 before Morgan was bowled looking to accelerate the run rate. Further quick wickets fell, bringing in Nick Dale. When Foster departed for 62 with 7 overs remaining, Dale started to hit regular boundaries and run hard with Romesh Paktsun (15 no). He ended with 42 not out off 33 deliveries and Sawbo finished with what looked like a good score of 235 for 8 off their 40 overs.

The Ardeley Walkern openers were watchful for the first couple of overs, but then started to punish anything wayward. Yellayagari in particular played a brutal innings and after just 13 overs Ardeley were 113 for 0. The introduction of spin through Foster and Morgan helped reduce the scoring rate, before Morgan bowled Hussain for 27. In his next over he got the big wicket of Yellayagari for 77 off 48 balls, which included twelve 4s and four 6s. But Ardeley were still well ahead of the run rate with only 116 needed off 25 overs and 8 wickets in hand. Number 3 Afzal was batting well, despite losing partners regularly, and looked to be taking the game away from Sawbo. The introduction of Paktsun changed the game as he bowled Afzal for 37 and then took 3 more wickets in his next 11 deliveries. Some late hitting from Iqbal took the score up to 200, but he was bowled by Paktsun in the penultimate over to secure the win and his 5 for.