Amersham 2nds recorded an ultimately tight victory over Cove 2nds on Saturday to get the new league season off to a flying start. Amersham won the toss and invited the home side to bat on a dampish track that never made scoring easy and soon made early inroads with Mike Garvey accounting for both of the Cove openers. At the other end, Duncan Ward exerted a vice like grip on proceedings and belied his years to ultimately bowl throughout the Cove innings and record the excellent figures of 25-4-70-5. Excellent support was given by Hanook Gill who deservedly took 2-15 in a tight spell of seam bowling Of the Cove batsmen only S Marisa (31) and A Anthony (29) ever looked comfortable and when Ward finished off matters by bowling Roylance, the target of 139 seemed well within reach at tea. In reply, Amersham quickly lost Peter Jupp, but Rich Stephenson (54) and Evan Hamilton-Pike (39) quickly took the game away from Cove with an aggressive partnership of 93 and at 100-1 Amersham appeared to be coasting towards an easy win. A quick flurry of wickets soon followed thereafter and Amersham appeared to be in danger of undoing all the preceding good work, and though despite trying hard to get himself caught and bowled it was fitting that man of the match Ward should hit the winning runs and secure the 20 points with 3 wickets and 15 overs remaining.