Third win in a row for Stags

A hard fought victory saw Ashtead move to third place in Division 1 of the Surrey Championship on Saturday.

Losing the toss on wet wicket, the early overs were always going to be difficult for Ashtead's young opening pair of Sibley and Elkin. Sibley in fact had the ignominy of going first ball of the innings, pushing at a seaming delivery outside his off stump and being caught at second slip. Elkin was to follow shortly afterwards, bowled by Khalil, to leave Ashtead reeling at 5 for 2. When Cameron was caught in the deep for 9, Ashtead were in serious trouble at 20 for 3. Friedlander (47) and Roberts (56) then staged a most impressive comeback, putting on 79 for the fourth wicket. Roberts was the more patient of the two, but never failed to pick up scoring opportunities when they arose, some of his cover driving was particularly sweet on the eye, Friendlander showed plenty of controlled aggression in his innings, including 3 fours and two sixes and will have been disappointed to have been out just before lunch when the Old Whits heads were definitely dropping.
The wickets of Pitt and Roberts soon after lunch threatened to tilt the balance back towards Old Whits but Vaughan-Davies (12) and Cope (27) helped get Ashtead towards the crucial 150 mark. Vaughan-Davies was perhaps unlucky to have been given out caught behind, but Cope continued on and with help from Deighton and Pickering got Ashtead upto a very defendable 177.

Old Whits got off to a decent start with young openers Morey and Stiddard showing plenty of confidence. In fact it took a brilliant catch by Sibley to dismiss Stiddard, with the score on 21. Morey followed more or less immediately, bowled by the very impressive Williams and thereafter wickets began to fall all to regularly for the Old Whits. This wicket was never going to be easy to bat on but Old Whits might be disappointed with the manner of some of their dismissals. However, their defeat was not to be without resistence. The highly experienced Ali Jaffery (44), took the fight back to Ashtead and for a while it looked as though Ashtead were to be denied victory. That all changed when Stewart Cameron replaced Tom Deighton (who had again impressed with figures of 4 for 35) and cleaned up Jaffery and his successor Khalil in consecutive balls to give Ashtead victory.