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Only 45 minutes travelling time for most of the convoy that left Kempton
at 12.30 hrs. Prize for this years biggest navigating error already won by R
Uddin and M Smith who forgot to turn off M3 onto M25 and only realised they
had gone wrong by the time they had reached Junction 6 (Basingstoke). Right
Junction boys, but wrong motorway, you wanted JCT6 M25 !!!! Very nice
ground, the 4th that the skip has played at in Warlingham (for those of you
geographically challenged it's nearly in Kent !),so knew the area quite
well. Trouble was we missed the turning to the ground in the lead car as
driver and navigator were comparing other grounds we had played at along the
same road, so we had to do a 180 as well.
Skipper lost the toss and we were inserted for another 35 overs a
side contest. With usual opener Rukn Uddin still some distance away an
unusual opening pair wandered out to the wicket. Charlie Welch 7 and Matt
Loveridge 2 who put on 13 runs before Matt departed and was replaced by Luke
Neville 51.Charlie was next to go with the score on 25 bringing James Warne
3 to the wicket. Luke and James put on our best partnership of 35 runs
before James was out to be replaced by Rukn Uddin 4.Luke's departure with
the total on 82 brought Martin Sherwood 5 in to hold up an end and when Rukn
was triggered LBW by Charlie, Dylan Richards 18 entered the fray putting
on 20 runs with Martin. When Dylan also fell LBW, Malcolm Smith 8 came in
and took our total to 120.With his demise the skip 1,got his first brief
knock of the season, also being out LBW to a shooter off a very young slow
bowler. Last out was Martin with 125 on the board, which left Aaron Campbell
3 Not Out and Richard Gawley 9 Not Out to see out the remainder of our 35
overs. Richard despatching the last ball of our innings for a fine straight
6.Innings closed on 139 for 9,
Extras 4 Byes,1 Leg Bye,16 Wides and 0 No Balls.
Not having a large total to defend things got off to a bad start with one
of their openers despatching every bad ball to the boundary. Much relief
then when he was caught top edging by Charlie Welch who had to make up a lot
of ground to take the catch off Malcolm Smith's bowling. Our opening bowlers
being Matt Loveridge 6-0-43-2 (an LBW and a Bowled) and Malcolm Smith
4-1-20-2 (Charlie's catch and a Bowled). Limited again to 7 overs per
bowler, change bowlers were Luke Neville 4-0-31-1 (Bowled) and a much
improved Richard Gawley 7-1-26-1 (another Catch by Charlie), Luke being
replaced by Dylan Richards 7-1-10-2 (1 Bowled and 1 Stumping). Aaron
Campbell 2-0-5-2 (a Catch by Malcolm and one by James Warne)
taking over from Richard made for an exciting finish where our
opponents looked odds on to win the game comfortably with overs to spare.
In the end the result was a Tie when their number 11 was out Stumped by
Charlie off Dylan's bowling with their score being 139 All Out in exactly 30
overs.
Excellent performance to get a Tie out of a game that we
should have lost, mention must be made of Charlie's performance behind the
stumps and Luke for brilliant fielding ,especially at the death when the
senior batsman declined to take easy singles to him, in order to keep the
strike in an effort to win the match for Croydon Post Office. Everybody
played a part in getting this result, selection for next week's first League
Match is going to be interesting !
