Smashing partnership sees off Cranleigh

A glorious day for cricket, and a glorious victory for Ashtead, as they took a nerve-racking but audacious 5 wicket victory over Cranleigh in Round 8 of the 2015 Surrey Championship Division 1.

Cranleigh won the toss, and unsurprisingly, chose to bat on a relatively dry and good-looking surface. However, they were unable to make early headway, as the fast bowling duo of overseas player Jordan Thomas and youngster Will Pereira bowled tight and accurate in the early overs.

Wickets were also tumbling – Seren Waters, the former Kenyan international, fell LBW to Thomas on the second ball of the game, and from there, Cranleigh were reduced to 13-2 when Rob Lammiman took a simple catch to remove Tom Jagot for 9.

The two Crump brothers, Matthew and Tom, then steadied the ship for a while, but in the 10th over, it was Pereira’s turn to strike, with Conor Young snaring a sharp chance in the slips to remove Tom for 11. The onset of the medium-pace bowlers, with Stewart Cameron the initial choice, brought further scalps, as an extremely well-held catch from John Vaughan-Davies at second slip deposed dangerous batsmen Andrew Hollingsworth for 16. At 68-4 after 17 overs, an early finish seemed on the cards.

This, however, did not count on a fightback from the visitors, which started with Crump and Cranleigh overseas player Sutha Thanabalasingham. They saw out, and very much saw off, the medium pace of Cameron, but then slowed to a crawl with the economical bowling of John Vaughan-Davies, and young spinner Tom Homes. They saw off the attack to lunch – 102-4 after 30 overs.

This vein continued after the interval, with not very many runs, but lots of overs bowled. Eventually, something had to give, and sure enough, Homes claimed his one and only wicket of the day, as Crump was trapped LBW for 39.

Shortly after this, the Stags’ skipper, Tom Deighton, decided to bring himself on to bowl, and immediately made an impact, removing Sutha for 52. This, in theory, should spell the end of the Cranleigh batting, but the tail decided to wag proficiently. Deighton continued to take wickets over the next few overs, but the runs also kept flowing. When Thomas returned, and nicked the final wicket to give both himself and Deighton 4 each, Cranleigh had recovered to 222 all out in 63.3 overs.

Just as Cranleigh began with a wicket in their first over, so Ashtead, feeling strangely sympathetic, followed suit as Michael Sanderson lost his stumps for just 1 run. Aside from this, the pace paring of Rob Lavery and Rob Procter could not make further inroads, and both Tom Laudy and Vaughan-Davies settled well.

However, Cranleigh saw an opportunity, bringing in the spinners, and this caused utter carnage within the early middle order. 3 wickets fell in just 4 overs, with two in a double-wicket maiden, to leave Ashtead reeling at 46-4 and in serious trouble.

John Vaughan-Davies and Sam Homes then steadied the ship, and shepherded the innings to 62-4 at tea, with 33 overs remaining. The loss of Vaughan-Davies for 30 shortly after this interval threatened another, fatal, collapse, but keeper Rob Lammiman decided to take the game from the visitors clutches. His innings, full of varied shots, showed pure power as the ball left the ground a number of times on his way to an unbeaten 85 from just 64 balls. Sam Homes also made his 50 as the visitors had no answer to either batsman. When the total was reached, the pair has made 145 unbeaten runs in partnership – and 24 points were secured.

Next week sees Ashtead travel to Malden Wanderers for another 120 overs fixture. In the limited overs match during Round 2 of the season, Malden were bowled out for just 78 in a crushing 9 wicket win. Join us then.