Merstham are champions
Fuller's Brewery County League Division One
Merstham 230-8
Shepperton 74
Merstham secured their second league title in as many years, with a comprehensive victory at Shepperton, having led the division from start to finish.
Winning the toss on a hot day, captain Naveed Saeed decided to bat and Arsalan Abass and Joe Rivers made a solid start. Ashar Syed scored a four with his first ball and went on to score 44. Noman Javed and Abass scored well together in the middle order before Tharusha Tilakarathne scored 36 with some lusty blows towards the end of the innings, ensuring the score raced from 180 to 230.
The Shepperton skipper was the only one who offered resistance as Merstham bowled out their hosts for 78, with wickets shared, Tilakarathne taking a couple and Suliman Younis bowling with pace and skill.
"It's a great achievement to be champions two years in a row," said Saeed. "It was a difficult league this year. All the teams can beat each other and there are not a lot of points between them, which shows how far ahead of the others we've been. Every game was a difficult game.
"Every team has said how we are a strong unit and play with a smile on our faces and they've said we've had the best bowling attack."
The season is not complete yet, however, nor the aims over. "We've got West End Esher on Saturday and they are still fighting for second place, but we want to beat them as we're trying to reach the 300 points mark again. We got 315 last year and we've got 283 so far."
All four teams won on Saturday, with the second team edging ever closer to the title, being 19 points ahead of second placed Staines and Laleham. The second team play third placed Woodmansterne on Saturday.
They chose to bat against mid-table Shepperton. Openers Jason Drewett (16) and Marvin Beckford (18) made decent starts and Manish Patel (retired not out) made 69 alongside club captain club captain Richard Feist on the way to a total of 228-7 off 45 overs.
In reply, Wasil Mohar dismissed both openers early and Shepperton were 9-3 before rallying to 166-9. Safyan Aslam also took two wickets, while Chat Ranawaka took three, Mark Beckford and Liton Tarofder taking the others.
The third team lie third after defeating Leatherhead by 58 runs. Batting first, Asim Ashraf scored 83 and Will Preston 37, with Marcus Kyte 31 not out, as Merstham notched up 244-8.
Leatherhead were dismissed for 186 with a ball left, Bobby Sharp, Ben Carter and Will Preston each taking two wickets.
The fourth team nudged themselves back up to fourth, winning for the fifth time and the fourth at the Ring in the league, defeating Sanderstead.
Omer Shuja took a wicket in his first over and kept up the pressure, finishing with 3-5 off seven overs (three maidens) along with Tony Rickards (4-23 off seven) as the visitors were bowled out for 58 in the 22nd over.
The pick of the catches was Kashif Noon's two handed take of a ball which looked to be shooting past his left shoulder. Will Prior needed treatment for a possible hairline fracture of a finger while attempting a slip catch. It was the lowest score the fourth team have dismissed a side for in many years.
In reply, opener Noon struck 19 before being caught and bowled by Danny Carey, Azhar Bhatti 11 and Khan Mohammed 17 were both not out as they won in the 19th over, with four wickets gone.