Club vs Parish

The Club succumbed to a strong Parish side on a glorious early smmer's afternoon at Woodfield Lane on Monday.

The Stags started strongly with Sam Gale to the fore timing the ball well and soon hitting Simon Calverly out of the attack. At the other end, Matt Leyland was also bowling for the Parish against his clubmates (loyalty has to be questioned!) and soon found a good line and length and clean bowled Gale with a beauty. The introduction of Matt Barham from the Mogul Dynasty end (ie the end nearest Craddocks Parade - home of probably the finest Curry House in Ashtead) was an astute bit of captaincy as he whirled away very effectively snaring 5 of the Ashtead batsmen in the course of the afternoon, a number of them with a well-disguised quickler ball. Joe Tisi came and went fairly quickly whilst the impressively lean Matt Jepp accumulated a steady 17 or so before being deceived by Barham's quicker delivery.

A good start for the Stags was looking less impressive at this stage and it was left to Ben Gale and Will Sudell to rebuild the innings as the Parish's bowling attack was giving little away by this time. Although not scoring rapidly, this duo was keeping the scoreboard moving and took the Stags up over 120 before both Ben was out for 21 and Will for 29. Peter Tisi showed his full repertoire of strokes before being out for a couple which was a couple more than Pete Sudell scored in his extensive two ball innings.

The highlight of the Stags innings was John Gale running out his partner George Willis attempting a single which would have been a challenge for Ben Johnson on steroids. Never mind, its the taking part which matters! The innings closed on 138 in the 40th over when Gyan holed out to short midwicket.

You'll have to wait for the report on the Parish's response as I need the scorebook to hand and its currently in my car. Two points to note at this stage. Firstly, Simon Calverly continued his good form with the ball with a first over duck (which at least enabled him to catch his flight later without fear of having letting his team down by leaving early). Secondly, suffice to say, the Parish batted sensibly and with no little panache. An unfortunate accident to one of their openers resulted in a trip to hospital and a fractured eye-socket and possible broken nose but even this did not halt their inevitable progress.

(To be continued when I find the scorebook)