Coleshill traveled to Bablake on Saturday for the final League game of 2021 on the back of an unbeaten run of 14 games and knowing that a win would be crucial to maintain their hopes of promotion.

With Warwick already champions, it was Knowle Village who had taken over second place and the team to catch, who were visitors to Fillongley. However all concentration was on the game in hand and after losing the toss, Coleshill were asked to bat first.

Playing on a 3rd XI ground was a new experience for the majority of Coleshill’s team, as all other sides in the division are 2nd XI sides, meaning that all other games had been played on club’s main grounds.

The new ball produced a few lively deliveries for openers Aaron Brown and Asam Shazad to contend with and after a steady start the runs began to flow at 28/0 after eight.

However after hitting the first ball of the ninth over to the boundary, Shazad nicked one from Morgan Eames to the keeper to give the hosts their first wicket. This brought skipper Dave Phillips to the middle joining Brown who hit three boundaries as he went into the teens.

Brown was then Eames’ second victim when caught at slip for 14 and this began a pretty dramatic collapse which saw both Anser Mahmood and Haider Bashir get bowled by Satish Charan for ducks and then Phillips followed shortly afterwards, also for 14, when he got a thick inside edge onto his stumps off Startup.

Four wickets had fallen for as many runs seeing Coleshill collapse from 57/1 to 61/5.

A vital recovery was built by Matthew Hill and Syed Shah as they stuck together for ten overs without further alarm, before the latter was bowled by the ultimately impressive all-rounder Zeeshan Aftab for 14, a third batsmen to fall for that score.

At 90/6 against an already relegated side, Coleshill were staring down the barrel and desperately needed something special from somewhere.

Hill’s excellent determined knock ended on 24 just after three figures came up but then two further cheap wickets seemed to be the beginning of the end at 116/9.

However as we have heard many times before, cricket can be a funny old game, and batting at number 10 – enter 15 year old Sheragha Ahmadzai who produced one of the most remarkable innings ever seen for several reasons not least is age and temperament.

Ahmadzai scored a single run from his first ten balls faced and then things changed…

Having ‘played himself in’ Ahmadzai then hit consecutive sixes off Charan before three boundary fours alongside last man Ammo Sandhu, who himself had got off the mark first ball for what would be his solitary run of the partnership.

The youngster was hitting the ball so cleanly to the boundary and the extraordinary display continued with four more maximum’s as both the partnership and his individual score passed 50.

The team score had reached 170 (54 stand) when the entertainment ended as Ahmadzai was caught for 51 from 30 balls but from his first to last boundary had hit 49 off 18 deliveries to leave Bablake bamboozled !

The Bablake reply started with a single from the first over. However openers Will Morgan and Ned Bailey were not in a rush and knew they had 59 overs to make their way to the target, which included nine extra from when Coleshill were out in the 41st of 50.

The next time the run rate matched the first over was to be in the 21st over !!

This had included a spell where opening bowler Ammo Sandhu had bowled six consecutive maidens as the hosts appeared to be batting for a draw from the start though there was no guarantee that had been the plan as double figures were only reached in the seventeenth over !

The breakthrough finally came in over 25 when Matt Hill got through the defences of Morgan to hit the stumps and a well earned drinks break was taken at 32/1.

A much more positive Qais Mohammed came out at three and hit a boundary off only his second ball, though this was aided by a misfield.

Six overs later, Hill struck again removing the other opener, Bailey by the same mode of dismissal and meant that the home openers had each been dismissed after 86 balls for 13 and 15 runs respectively.

Meanwhile, batting hero Ahmadzai had been introduced as the sixth bowler and he took a wicket in the next over as Khuram Hussain accepted a simple catch from Qais with the score now 54/3.

Hill was in a good rhythm now and really started to turn the screw on Bablake by doubling his wickets tally to four as he removed both skipper Pete Auguste and Sam Startup, to a smart stumping by Brown, in consecutive overs.

Then, when Shah clean bowled new batsman Tom Evans on only his second ball, the writing appeared to be on the wall for the hosts at 77/6.

Once again though it was time for another twist in this enthralling tussle as Oliver Eames was joined by Aftab and the pair soon steadied the ship before Aftab went on his own big hitting display to take Bablake to the verge of a winning position.

74 runs were added in just eleven overs which was by far the biggest partnership of the match as Aftab reached a fine half century and become top scorer of the game too.

Two of Coleshill’s bowlers, Syed Shah and Matt Hill had bowled their full allocation, so it was the return of Azhar Khan which helped turn the game back Coleshill’s way when he bowled Eames for 15 with the score at 151.

Then man of the match Ahmadzai removed the dangerous Aftab with a leg side catch to keeper Brown for 54 to the elation of the visiting support.

Khan then bowled both numbers ten and eleven in his next over to wrap up an 18 run win for Coleshill to stretch the unbeaten League run for the 1sts to 15 games.

Frustrating news soon came through that Fillongley had failed to deny Knowle Village from chasing 218 so the latter retained second place to gain promotion, leaving Coleshill fractions of average points behind in third.

Hopes now are dependent on how winter recalculating and rescheduling of clubs within the various divisions may with any luck see Coleshill still rise to the next level.