Nine alive for Merstham firsts: weekend round-up
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Fuller’s Brewery Surrey County League Division One
Chaldon 75
Merstham 76-6
Merstham’s first team took a lead from their seconds on Saturday, bowling their opposition out for a small score on their way to victory.
This time their victims were Chaldon, who were the last side to beat them, last August, before both were promoted from division two, Merstham as champions.
Losing the toss, Merstham, who have won all nine league games this season and lead division one by 33 points, were put in the field by their hosts, who clearly fancied their chances of notching a good score after two overs, putting on 34 runs in that time, a period which featured a drop catch.
However, opening batsman Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal guided the ball to captain Naveed Saeed who took a catch in the slips to leave the hosts on 40-1.
After that, opening bowlers Suliman Younis and Ammar Tahir clicked into gear, bowling a good line and length, each finishing with five wickets (Younis 5-31, Tahir 5-35), after only two bowlers were used.
“Every time I tried to take them off they kept taking another wicket,” said Saeed.
In reply, Merstham lost Asher Syed early. On a pitch that was not easy to bat on, fellow opener Joe Shinners managed 21, while Noman Javed struck 28 before being caught out on the boundary.
It was left to Saeed (3no) and Arsalan Abbas (12no) to see them over the line.
Next weekend, Merstham travel to mid-table Long Ditton in the league on Saturday before hosting Frimley in the quarter-finals of the league cup on Sunday at Quality Street.
Frimley are third in the same division as Merstham and have suffered just two defeats – once to Merstham at Quality Street.
The second team bowled their opposition out for less than 100 for the third week running, to win again as they also lead their division, by 32 points.
Asked to bat, they scored 243-8 declared after 47.5 overs. Opener Jason Drewett notched 39, including eight fours, before being the second wicket to fall on 64, while Ameer Pasha top scored in the middle order with 61 not out (seven fours). Chat Ranawaka, No 8 batsman, was the third player to score above 30 while No 9 James Lowe went very close with 27.
Clearly Hampton Hill were not expecting the bowling onslaught which has dismissed opponents cheaply in recent weeks, as Safyan Aslam bagged 3-30 off 8 overs, Ranawaka 3-24 off five and Imran Aslam 3-6 off 2.1 overs, with the visitors all out in the 24th over.
The thirds and fourth were without matches, but that was not the end of the weekend’s winning results.
The Sunday team gave visitors Smallfield a few players to make a full match and Will Preston racked up his first ever century (104) as Merstham struck 234-7 off 35 overs in a match shortened by some lunchtime rain. Opener Ben Carter was also progressing well towards a half century when he was out with just under 40.
In reply, one of the “borrowed” players Bobby Sharp helped himself to 91 runs, but the visitors fell just short of the total as they were all out for 221, four wickets to James Lowe.
Picture: Will Preston closing in on his first ever century, on Sunday