Last ball win for the Stags

Ashtead lose toss and are invited to bat.

Gale: prod prod bosh prod clunk - bowled 4
Williams: prod swoosh swish bugger - caught 11
Roberts: bugger - bowled 0
Storey; prod jog nudge prod jog bosh bugger = caught 11

Ashtead 30 – 4.

Drinks after 22: Ashtead 50 – 4. Nobby Clarke 10 overs 2 -9.

Reed: prod, nudge, boof, nudge, bludger, bludger, rapier, nudge, double nudge, breather, bosh, biff, skier, trot, monitor heart rate, biff, skier, “sorry skipper” – caught 37.

Nichols J: nudge nudge nudge nudge nudge nudge, return to hutch – caught 11

Sudell: prod, thud, owzat, prod, bish, bosh, prod, trot, ouch, prod, hobble, nudge, waddle, biff, timber! – bowled 17

Whiteley: prod, nurdle, bish bash bosh, “yes wait go” (or was it “no”?), prod, bosh, biff, bosh, trot, sprint, nurdle, bosh, bosh, bosh - not out 49

Nichols R: prod, prod, nurdle, nudge, prod, nurdle, bosh, biff – not out 15

Sunbury: Nobby as economical as ever – see above. Little Tommy Tebble bowled superbly to take 1-31 off his 10 overs and Bill Kincaid 1-31 off his 10.

45 overs Ashtead 170 for 7. At drinks, the skipper would have taken it!

Tea – slurp slurp, mmm, ahhh, any more doughnuts/chips/pizza. (Top marks as ever to Sunbury tea-makers!)

The Stags Bowling Response.

Rose: his mother would have been pleased with the bunch of wild roses he produced; if Sunbury could have reached them, it would have been defined as a quite expensive spray - 5 overs 0-20

Hill: a wayward start but reached a pinnacle of perfection, especially in his second spell. 10 overs 2-26.

Nichols R: gives hope to all that, whatever your talent, you can bowl crap and still end up with good figures; not a question of could go further but should have gone further! - 10 overs 1–39

Williams H: reliable as ever as the “go to” bowler to bowl at the death. Did exactly what was asked of him and never wavered even when got a bit of a tonk from Curtis Higgins. 10 overs 3-36.

Whiteley D: finished off as our man of the match with a unbroken spell of 10 overs 1-40. Kept his head at the crucial moment. Never let them get on top.

Fielders: lacklustre and uninspiring all day. Many will continue their careers in the 4ths on this basis (me included, but at least that is the limit of my ambition!).

Sunbury: kept in the game by a superlative effort by the aforementioned Curtis with 87 not out. Wasn’t a good idea to drop him with about 4 overs to go and 30 required but we got away with it. So nearly the perfect innings.

Lady luck evens herself out however as, thankfully, in the last over (at least for the Stags), with Bill Kincaid on strike at no 11 and Curtis hungry for the strike, a classic cover prod from Kincaid for a single somehow became a two and Curtis was stranded at the non-strikers end for most of the last over and the initiative was handed back to Ashtead. Four to tie off the last ball was just a little bit too much.

45 overs: Sunbury 166-9.

Ashtead win by 4 runs.

A tense but not a great game in which Ashtead, having been on the ropes earlier in the day at 30-4, somehow managed to win and very nearly contrived to lose.