Merstham lose but stay second: Saturday round-up
Merstham’s first team hung on to second place in the Fuller’s Brewery League Premier Division, but all of the top three teams in the division lost on Saturday.
The Magics did, in fact, make up a few bonus points on the leaders, Merrow, mostly courtesy of scoring 225 runs in their allotted overs, while losing six wickets.
Opting to bat at hosts SinjunGrammarians, the visitors made a fantastic start with Joe Shinners (72) and Arsalan Abass (70) putting on 135 for the first wicket and then Ben Baker (50) scoring his first half century, after promotion from third team ranks a few weeks ago, to push the innings on.
But captain Naveed Saeed knew it was a small score. “We were at least 20 runs short and really should have got 260 on a great batting track,” he said.
“They had two really good spinners who slowed down our scoring.”
Abass has been the star of the past few weeks, and Saeed added: “He’s in the form of his life with bat and ball – he even scored a century on Sunday. Joe Shinners also batted really well and after 20-odd overs they had put together a partnership of 135.”
In reply, Merstham took wickets with the score on 20, 40 and 69 but Saeed admitted: “The problem was, taking wickets on that track was quite difficult. Their number three (Vijeeth Vignaraj) was a really good left-handed batsman who scored 80 and their oversees player from India (Samad Abdul Khadeer) was a really good player.
“We dropped three catches including those two and that lost us the game.”
The hosts won by six wickets with just under three overs remaining.
Victory would have taken Merstham top, because Merrow were defeated, while LIngfield, in third, also lost.
“There are three games left and it’s all in our hands still,” said Saeed, whose team remain on course for a third consecutive promotion, after two titles, by finishing in second – but the skipper won’t be settling for runners-up. “We still have a chance of winning the league and that’s what the aim is,” he said.
The second team need one more win to win the title in the Surrey Championship Division 5 for 2nd XIs. It would be a second successive title win.
Their latest victims were Cobham Avorians who were restricted to 184-8 in their 50 overs, having recovered from 0-2 to 92 for the third wicket. Opening bowler Saf Aslam took 2-10 from 10 overs (7 maidens) with Mark Beckford and Manish Patel also taking two wickets apiece.
Winning took 43.1 overs, with Joe Benson top scoring with 60 including a 68 partnership with Marvin Beckford who notched 28. Merstham took victory by four wickets, Richard Feist (12) and Gurpal Singh (4) the two men not out at the end.
The third team clocked up another win, Ben Carter steadying nerves with 27 at the start before Struan Clark (53) and Zeeshan Muttaza (37 not out) gave the hosts at the Ring a total of 172.
In reply, Jon Coleman took 3-12 in his nine overs (5 maidens) and Carter took an impressive 3-16 in five overs, while Will Preston bagged two wickets as well, to reduce Addiscombe to 84 all out in the 25th over.
The fourth team, without a regular wicketkeeper, conceded too many byes at Addiscombe to make the game competitive, with the hosts setting a target of 240-6 from their 45 overs, Gopa Nair taking 2-25.
The fourth team were never going to keep up that pace, especially against fairly pacey openers. The top four scored one run between them and only Khan Mohammad, with a fabulous and patient 53 not out, made the score look half decent, before being the last man out, caught by a running behind catch with the team on 102.