Weybridge Vandals 153

Merstham 154-8

Surrey Championship Division Five

Merstham 1st XI got back to winnings ways, but did it the hard way during a nail-biting game against Weybridge Vandals. 

With the Weybridge skipper winning the toss and electing to bat, Merstham were keen to continue their early season form with the ball. 

Noman Javed (12.3 overs 5-53) and Asim Jaffry (13 overs 4-41) took the new ball and both started well with an early wicket leaving Weybridge at 12-2. 

Their opening spells were also full of incident, with some aggressive strokes matching some frustrating near misses. They were ably followed up by the returning George Neal (6 overs 1-22) and Humayoon Nasir (6 overs 0-19). 

While the Merstham bowlers remained attacking with their line and length, the Weybridge middle order had managed to accumulate well, and reached 125-4.

After drinks, Jaffry and Javed returned in tandem for what proved a game-altering spell between the two Merstham quicks. Wickets at regular intervals meant that Weybridge were all out for 153, a stunning collapse of losing six wickets for the final 28 runs.

Merstham then had 62 overs to knock off the 154 required for victory. The reply started serenely, with Andy Rivers (25) and Ali Pervaiz (22) reaching 42 before Rivers departed, caught off Roo Powell (2-51).

Laurie Nicholson (11) left soon after with the score on 59-2, which began a collapse ending with Merstham reeling at 65-5.

Ben Baker (16) and Ed Dawson (18) stemmed the flow of wickets, and it was the fearless batting of William Preston (33) and Neal (15 no) who saw the team home with two wickets to spare in the 53^rd over.

Skipper Nicholson said: “It was a massive win for us. We knew we had three important games coming up against teams who are around us in the league, so to win the first of those is huge. Hopefully we can win the next two and start looking up towards the top of the league.

“While we still had a bad collapse in the middle order, I was really pleased with our opening pair, and it’s great to know we have batsman lower down who can get us out of trouble.”

The second team needed just two more wickets to secure a win at Purley, but alas the hosts managed to get over the 120 run target.

Asked to bat, Merstham lost wickets regularly, with a best partnership of 40 in mid-innings between No 3 Jason Kyte (25) and No 8 Jack Letts (19) before Kyte was bowled, leaving the score 100-7. Asher Syed and Nav Saeed both scored 16 along the way.

With Purley reduced to 10 after a player left early, Merstham nearly took the nine wicket they needed, but had to settle for seven and just two bowling points.

It started so well with the ball, too, with Purley reduced to 25-4, all dismissed by Imran Aslam (three bowled and the other caught by captain Richard Feist). Aslam also had another, caught by Rob Harris, to finish on an excellent 5-19 off 14 overs, with 6, to leave Purley 47-5.

But Purley’s wicketkeeper took hold of the game with the bat, lifting the hosts to 117 before he was seventh man down, leaving his colleagues three runs to find. Letts and Arham Ali (with a caught and bowled) were the other wicket tackers.

The third team also couldn’t take the final two wickets to win, being held to a draw by a stubborn Mitcham side.

Skipper James Lowe’s decision to bat was rewarded by his side finding 269 runs, George Chellis opening with 68, Matt Hill just falling short of a half-century with 48 and No 8 Max Stormer helping himself to 84 not out (Lowe 20 as well).

Try as they might, the third team couldn’t break the ninth wicket partnership and had to settle for the winning draw with the hosts eight down after 45 overs.

The fourth team were determined not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, having bowled out visitors Beddington 5s for 107 in 36.2 overs, having been invited to bat.

Beddington’s opening bat had looked promising, but the look on his face when he was dismissed was one of stunned amazement. Having put the ball back high over bowler Gopa Nair’s head, he was shocked to see teenager Josh Young’s 20 metre sprint end in the teenager taking a running catch that has the writer all out of superlatives.

It set the tone. The visitors to The Ring couldn’t cope with Omar Shuja’s nagging accuracy. The other opener was the first of the seamer’s 5-17 (4 maidens) in a tight 13 over marathon off his new short run-up. He was aided by catches from Dilhan Jayamanne in the slips, Ian Lamont and Tony ‘safe hands’ Rickards who took two during the afternoon.

In all, there were seven catches. Zain Abideen took another, having not been rewarded with a wicket in his bowling (0-23). Teen Matt Greaves (1-15) continued his development in adult cricket with a caught and bowled. Young added to his fine early catch with 3-16 with ball in hand, including the final wicket, bowled.

The fourth team have been known to stampede down the thin line between achieving what should be a manageable target by “making it interesting” and then sprinting towards total cock up. With such battle scars in mind, Ian Lamont set himself to "taking no risks" mode and plodded his way to 23 not out (off 47 balls), providing a foundation for better batsmen to pick off the majority of the runs.

Jayamanne was clearly more in a hurry for his dinner but nonetheless fairly patient, rattling off eight fours in his 40 from 37 balls. Once he was caught, Shuja capably swept up many of the remaining runs to also end on 23 not out, but off just 24 balls.

That gave the hosts a first win of the season (other than the two games conceded to them) by eight wickets.   

Pictured: Merstham first team batting against Weybridge. By Harry David