Final game of the season ends in another lose

Ashtead travelled to Dulwich in the last game of the season, having already been relegated the week before.

Winning the toss we inserted Dulwich on what looked like a bowling friendly pitch. The Dulwich openers started sprightly cutting and driving, but once Jake Martin had got both then runs became hard to achieve. Jake finished with his first 5 wicket haul as he captured the final wicket.

Dom Lloyd played his first 3rd XI game and took 3-13 and Steven Scott (1-16) and Marcus Caprano-Wint (0-27) tied things up to restrict Dulwich from scoring runs. Once Aaron Rose (1-33) and Jake Martin (5-25) came back the innings was over for just 156.

However, Ashtead lacked batting as has been the issue for most of the season but were hoping for a positive outcome. We lost wickets early but the two Gale brothers got the score to 42 before Ben (15) was out. Then a mini partnership from Wint and Gale got the score to 66 when Wint (19) succumbed to the slow left arm spin.

Sam Gale (30) was the 5th wicket out just after drinks and then Ashtead stuttered to reach 116, 40 runs short.

The same problem persists with not enough batting depth to chase low scores. The bowling has been exceptional all year, but the Stags 3rd XI have deserved to be relegated with only 2 batsman scoring more than 150 runs all season.