3s finish season in style

The 3s hosted Beddington at the lovely setting of Westhumble on a glorious Saturday afternoon to finish the league season. Losing the toss, Ashtead were asked to have a bat.

The Ashtead openers went off like a train scoring freely against Beddington's young opening attack, but then lost Pountney and then Castle in quick succession, which brought Tom Culhane out to join Seb Stewart-Taylor and the crowd were treated to some excellent batting as the pair racked up a 203 run partnership, Seb reaching his first Ashtead senior hundred in style and Tom following soon after to reach his.

They played fantastically together scoring runs freely, but watching carefully as well. Tom fell in the same over he reached his 100 and Seb followed a little later for a fine 120.

This brought the hard hitting Sidwell and Gavin-Brown together to bring the Stags up to a very good 325-4 in their 50 overs, clearly the hghest score for them all season.

Hill and Castle opened the bowling after tea, and faced an onslaught from the Beddington opener, who scored 45 in 23 balls, he was eventually well caught by Gavin-Brown off Castle as the field had spread. Castle, and one of the men of the moment Culhane grabbed the next 3 wickets between them, finishing with a pair each bringing then the leg-spin of Connor Caprano-Wint and his slightly quicker father Rob to bowl in tandem, and they picked up the next 6 wickets between them, 3 each to bowl Beddington out for 185 and secure a 140 run win in the 38th over.

Ashtead finished the season in a respectable 6th position, but the last few games have broaught 4 wins which has lifted the Stags from relegation candidates to mid table safety. If only we could compete earlier in the season the end of the season would be much more relaxed!