Amersham 1st XI made the long journey to North Hampshire to play Cove on Saturday. After overcoming the initial challenge of finding the ground the visitors were pleased to be asked to bat first on losing the toss. Chris Fleming and Andy Viney began solidly, as is becoming customary, and put on 54 for the first wicket, a partnership that featured several sumptuous drives through the covers from Fleming. His dismissal, caught at slip in the 14th over was Cove's only success with the ball as brothers Rob and Andy Viney batted for the next 37 overs with no alarm to build an unbroken partnership of 186. Rob reached his century off 113 balls, with 12 fours,, while Andy's unbeaten 91 occupied 150 balls and was a characteristic mixture of watchful defence, good running and sensible shot selection. After an excellent tea Amersham began their attempt to bowl Cove out with their usual mixture of pace and spin. Matt Crawley bowled a tidy spell, including some genuinely brisk deliveries, while David Atkinson whirled away from the other end. Atkinson induced a false shot from Schofield who played on and appealled successfully for lbw against Short, sweeping before James Marsh and Stan Marisa built a dangerous looking partnership for Cove. This was ended when Marisa was caught by Matt Ash off Atkinson. Marsh moved serenely on, however, until Jack Kilgannon claimed his first league wicket for the 1st XI when MArsh tried to hit him over the top only to sky the ball back to the bowler. Kilgannon struck again when he persuaded Nick Marsh to play the ball onto his stumps but successes were coming too infrequently for Amersham as the overs ticked by. Cove were out of range of the target of 240, but the final stages of the game were enlivened by some long hitting by Steve Audsley. He used his great height to good advantage as he plundered 50 of only 26 balls including 3 big sixes. As the game finished in a draw Amersham reflected on a second successive game where they could not dismiss the opposition when the chance to win the game was there and will hope to succeed at the third time of asking against Harefield on Saturday.