Last over lose for Ashtead 3s

Ashtead bowled first at Box Hill against Valley End and the game couldn't have started any better as Jake Martin (3-21) had their no 1 batter caught at 3rd slip by Will Culhane off the very first ball of the game and then the no 3 batter out on the 4th ball of the game. He secured his 3rd wicket as Valley End found themselves on 17-3 early on, but the next partnership was key as this took Valley End over a hundred when Connor Caprano-Wint (4-46) secured his first of 4 wickets. But while wickets fell on regular occasions each partnership still took Valley End towards 200 and the final wicket eventually fell on 224 in the 48th over.

Ashtead had 43 overs to reach their target and openers Wint (19) and Tom Culhane (22) started rapidly, but their partnership was broken on 42 as Wint fell with a failed pull shot, Tom fell soon afterwards and at 47-2 some inroads had been made. But it was the partnership of Parkinson (44) and Martin (53) that got the chase on track, however the demise of both rapidly put the brakes on the chase. Having secured the winning draw target of 204 with 2 overs to go we lost the 9th wicket as Alex Culhane was caught on the boundary. This left the last pair of Caprano-Wint and Cowie a few balls to last but on the first ball of the last over Caprano-Wint took a single and the very next ball Cowie was bowled to sink Ashtead to another defeat chasing but only 13 runs short.

The full scorecard can be found on Playcricket here.

Next week sees us host league leaders Beddington next weekend and a better performance is needed.