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Saturday 1st XI

Merstham Saturday 1st XI vs. Carshalton

There are no players listed for this fixture

Match Report:

On the back of a good team performance to take them through in the cup the week previously, Merstham went into their first league game hosting Carshalton on Saturday in confident mood. With the weather being poor and drizzling throughout the morning, captain Ed Loader knew it would be an important toss to win. Unfortunately it wasn't to be as Carshalton skipper Lennox Haynes call Tails correctly and inserted Merstham to bat. Peter Freeman, new signing for 2010 for Merstham having joined from Maori Oxshott opened positively with Loader but was the first to fall with a sharp catch taken by Premasinghe at slip off the bowling of Joe Prior. This brought Joe Shinners to the crease to form a familiar partnership with Loader. The rains came with the score on 67 for 1 with Loader on 42 and 20 overs were lost to the weather. When play resumed Shinners and Loader looked to be aggressive to enable themselves time to try to force a result. With the pitch still playing reasonably well and the conditions offering no swing for the Carshalton bowlers Merstham pushed on with Loader notching up the first century of the league campaign and Shinners passing his half century before Loader was stumped off a wide from the bowling of Jones for 105 with the score on 187. Patel joined Shinners for 2 overs of mayhem before a sporting declaration was made with the score on 208 for 2 off 32.5 overs leaving Carshalton 43 overs to bat. Merstham's spearhead Dan Feist took the new ball and claimed the wicket of Premasinghe with a yorker in the first over for 4. Len Haynes quickly followed with an outside edge off Feist taken low by stand-in keeper James Vincent. Wasil Mohar was bowling with aggression and at good pace from the other end but had no luck as he beat the outside edge on several occasions and when he did find the edge of opener Cook's bat saw the catch put down in the slips by Loader. Manish Patel was next into the attack and immediately trapped Barber LBW for 11 with the score on 37. Carshalton realised any realistic chance of winning had passed them by and opted to defend early and close out the game to deny a Merstham victory. Cook switched his shot selection from fishing outside off to the forward defensive prod to frustrate the Merstham bowlers one by one and was joined by Dji Ali who was holding back his natural attacking instinct. Mohar finally claimed the wicket of Cook in his second spell with an edge to Vincent but the game had fizzled out into a bore draw as the pitch and ball were now offering very little to Merstham.