01/05/10 - Merstham 3rd XI (F)

Merstham 3^rd XI CC all out 161 vs Newdigate CC 3^rd XI 154-5

The Newdigate 3^rd XI travelled over to the Royal Alexandra & Albert School for their opening 40 over friendly under a darkening sky and found themselves playing amidst surely one of the more picturesque cricketing venues around. Set against the lake within lovely grounds behind the school's imposing buildings mitigated the downside of having to contend with an artificial wicket and very slow outfield.

Merstham won the toss and elected to bat and were off to steady start against the tight opening bowling partnership pair of Chris Perrin (1-15) and Thomas Ball (2-27). Both bowlers made the batsmen work for runs testing the Merstham batsmen regularly and good Newdigate fielding eventually paid off with a run out involving the eager Harvey Mewis and Ball and the introduction of Dev Patel to the attack kept the pressure on. Dev was rewarded with the excellent figures of 2-17 off his eight overs and constantly threatened the batsmen. Supporting also was Alex Miller who bowled bravely to return 2-22 off his 6 overs and as Merstham sought to accelerate Jack Bowley nipped in with his spin to take 2 valuable wickets in 2 balls. Meanwhile at the other end Bertie Edwards celebrated his first open age game with 4 overs of excellent leg spin beating the bat regularly though without luck. The opening bowling partnership eventually returned to quickly mop up the Merstham tail with 2 overs to spare in a very impressive session in the field. After tea, Newdigate began their reply opening with Bowley and keeper James Bettesworth (20) who put on a careful though rain interrupted 34. As the outfield slowed runs became harder to come by and whilst Simon Hayward contributed 12 looking to increase the run rate it was Chris Perrin (44) and Bowley who battled hard for the fifth wicket to get within 7 runs of the Merstham total before time ran out. A well worked 50 from Jack Bowley capped a most encouraging start to the Newdigate 3 ^rd XI season and given the 45 minute interruption due to rain and an even slower outfield as a result Newdigate came away well pleased with all performances.