Match Report

Fathers day defeat for the Narks at Purley

With the fixture left very much in doubt after yellow weather warnings, the Sunday XI ventured over to Purley-on-Thames CC. After some gentle reminders of C. Lamming’s ‘rib-tickling’ performance for the 1st XI last season, captain Kelly duly lost the toss and was put in to bat. Kelly indeed maximised his opportunity to lead the side and duly decided to open the batting himself alongside Kevin Dolan. The pair played their way to a boundary-less 19 before the scoreboard pressure tolled and Dolan was run out. Out strode Tom Wright at 3, fresh from his 73 the previous week and 52 at the top of the innings for the 1st XI the previous day. With this caliber of batsman at the non-striker’s end, and R. Barker due in at 4, Kelly duly scored the first boundary of the day before chipping the ball to mid-wicket. A useful partnership of 57 was played by Wright and Barker until Tom Wright “got bored of prodding it about” and was duly caught at mid-off for 31. Barker continued to bat on with his new partner, Ben Sidders, however, the partnership was broken with Sidders being run out. While Sidders had some ‘me time’ in the dressing room, William Cuthbert strode to the crease. After a stand of 12, Cuthbert elected to gently dolly the ball to gully who gratefully took the catch. A mere 7 runs later, Barker hauled out for 45, leaving Lamming and Pickard to push the score on. While controversy struck the innings in the latter stages with Lamming hitting a dead ball for 4, Wooburn crawled their way to 149.  However, this laid the foundation for the most important issue of the day: tea. After 2 superb teas at Purley last season, the team was looking forward to a large tea which, much to the delight of the players, included hot chips and a lovely range of sandwiches.  In terms of the second innings, the dream team of Lamming and Lamming opened up with 11 overs, 1-53, with Ben Halstead taking a good catch at backward point and a more than hairy moment for Keeper Kelly as the ball missed his helmet by mm (and saved 5 penalty runs). While the first change bowlers of Pickard and Sidders certainly caused problems, it was Ben Halstead who took the second wicket of the innings, with the Purley 1st XI captain top edging his sweep shot and Kelly diving several meters to his left to take the catch at full stretch. Unfortunately, it was too little too late and Purley chased down the 150 runs required with 16 overs to spare.{!—ra:000000006fbd2468000000004b54d73d—}