The Middlesex County League Division Three club travelled to 2017 Premier Division champions on Sunday and produced a superb display

Pratik Patel praised his Crouch End team-mates after they secured a famous victory in the second round of the National Club Championship over Ealing on Sunday.

The Middlesex County League Division Three club visited the Premier Division champions expecting a difficult encounter.

It proved the case with Crouch End all out for 151, but they produced a fine effort with ball to dismiss Ealing for 148 in the final over.

Vice-captain Patel said: “Sunday was massive for us. We played in the competition about five or six years ago, but since then we haven’t been involved because we just couldn’t compete.

“When we were batting we were 99-1 and then we had a collapse, but we scraped up to 150 in the end.

“At this stage we felt we were 50 runs short of what we expected to get, so at half time we knew it would be hard.

“We weren’t focused too much on the end result, we just wanted to represent Crouch End in the best way possible and put up a fight.

“Thankfully we got some early wickets and afterwards we were always in the game and the last over was dramatic.

“It went to the second from last ball and they needed four to win, but we got the catch and won it, so it was fantastic for us and a great day for Crouch End CC.”

Patel paid tribute to the whole team after the victory with everyone playing their part in the cup success.

Wicket-keeper Jalpesh Vijay top scored for Crouch End with 64 off 57 balls and he was ably supported by winter signings Poojan Vyas (30) and Darshan Depala (21*) while Nilesh Patel added 21 batting at number nine.

It allowed the visitors to post 151, but as they were all out after 36.3 overs, they had failed to use the final 21 balls of their innings.

A quick start was required to give them any chance against the 2017 Premier Division champions and Patel (2-13) helped them by claiming two early wickets.

He was backed up by another winter signing in the shape of Chetan Depala (2-30) and captain Hiren Desai chipped in with 2-22 from his eight overs.

Amandeep Dhaliwal, a recent recruit from Actonians, was the star of the show with the ball, however, as he finished with figures of 4-32 from his 5.5 overs and had Ealing skipper Kristian Martin caught for 42 off the penultimate ball of the match.

“Dhaliwal is a new signing, a 22-year-old leg spinner, and these are the kind of games he joined us for,” said vice-captain Patel.

“He deserves a big mention, but to be honest it was a massive team performance and we had four new boys representing Crouch End in the form of Amandeep, Poojan and Darshan and Chetan and they all contributed towards our success.

“They have played a few games for us already this season, but this was their first big cup game and they have helped us to improve.”