Arrived early at the Royal Holloway College sports ground to find a
decent batting strip surrounded by a deep pile outfield. Scoring runs was
never going to be easy, especially as the ground had suffered a sprinkling
of rain while we were on our way there. We were delighted to discover that
usual Egham skipper Gordon Bartlett had played his
last game of the season the previous week, so the chance of keeping the
Egham score low looked good. Unfortunately the skipper lost the toss and
we were inserted. Things got off to a slow start and even worse we had an
early collapse losing openers Steve Smith 1 on 4,Martin Sherwood 1 on 11
and our number 4 James Warne 0 on 15.Number 3 James Russell 23 showed how
we should bat until he was Run Out going for a second run with Alfie
Mekwan having put on 29 together. Next in was the skip 4 putting on a
further 23 with Alfie Mekwan 21,but the rot set in again and both were out
with our total on 67.Tom Broad 1 and Richard Gawley 7 were next in,
Tom being dismissed with our score on 70,closely followed by Joe Carter
0 five runs later. Richard was our last man out with no addition
to our total. Harry Lee 14 not out and Matt Loveridge 8 Not Out saw us
through to the maximum
of 47 overs with our score on 99 for 9.Extras 1 Bye,15 Wides and 2 No
Balls.
We got off to a great start in reply opening bowler Matt Loveridge
taking a wicket LBW in the first over and following up shortly afterwards
with a second wicket Bowled making Egham's total 7 for 2.Sadly that
was our last success other than a Run Out with the total on 36 as Egham
cruised to victory in just 22.2 overs, finishing on 101 for 3.
For completeness our bowling statistics Matt Loveridge 10-0-33-2,James
Russell 6-0-18-0,Tom Broad 3-0-22-0, Joe Carter 2-0-16-0 and Alfie Mekwan
1.2-0-12-0,Extras 13 Wides and 2 No Balls.
Positive points, the return of James Russell to the fold, batting
unexpectedly high at 3 and doing well by top scoring, and bowling as well
as ever causing problems for the experienced Egham early order. Another
solid knock from Alfie Mekwan getting into the twenties again and Harry
Lee looking good at the crease being third highest scorer.
