Surrey Championship Division Five
Merstham 163
Weybridge Vandals 137

AFTER a disappointing loss to Alleyn last weekend that all but ended their chances of promotion this season, Merstham returned to winning ways with a hard-fought victory away to Weybridge Vandals in the Surrey Championship Division Five.

Merstham were asked to bat and Vandals had Merstham 30-4 after some tight bowling by openers Jonny Powell and Mark Fenton, who were aided by a remarkably green pitch.

The premature departure of the in-form Ben Baker (8) fresh from a superb 83 not out the previous week, brought skipper Laurie Nicholson to the middle, and the captain set about steadying the ship with characteristic pugnacity.

In partnership with opener George Neal, who had calmly avoided joining the early chaos, Nicholson (36) rebuilt the innings with some excellent shots on the off side, taking Merstham to a far more promising 103-5 by the time he fell to some prodigious in-swing in the 33rd over.

As is so often the case, Nicholson’s wicket brought several more in quick succession, but Neal continued to impress, playing especially well behind square, and he was eventually assisted by some effective counter-attacking from No 10 Asim Jaffri.

After Jaffri (16) had fallen in the 45th over, it fell to debutant Charlie Morse (5 not out) to stay with Neal for the remainder of the overs, and he did so with aplomb, scything away a boundary to the leg side and defending robustly when called upon.

Neal began to accelerate once he had passed fifty, despatching off spinner Anish Kulkarni for a series of well-struck boundaries as he continued to make light of the testing conditions. The opener finally fell in the 50th over for 74, having steered his side to a competitive 163 all out.

Much to Merstham’s relief, the early cloud cover had remained, and openers Noman Javed (2-29) and Gus Locke (3-34) gave a masterful exhibition of swing bowling to rival anything seen in NW8, removing the home side’s top order in a fine initial burst.

The wickets continued to fall with the introduction of Asim Jaffri (3-35) who sent the leg stump flying in spectacular fashion to dismiss Woo Powell (27). Merstham sensed a quick victory, but Vandals rallied through Mark Fenton (40) and Kulkarni (10), and only some superb bowling from Jaffri and Humayoon Nasir (1-16) kept them below the rate.

Rain began to fall, making bowling increasingly difficult, and despite losing several more wickets, Vandals slowly started to edge towards an improbable run chase, with Fenton playing some punishing shots on both sides of the wicket.

Nicholson had bravely backed his strike bowlers to finish off the tail, but found himself in a quandary in the 41st over as Javed, Locke, Jaffri, and Nasir had all completed their 10-over spells. Somewhat inevitably, the mantle fell to Neal, who had begun the season as a bowler before making the transition to opening the batting. Neal’s first three deliveries were rather fortuitously carved away for 12 runs, but the man of the match showed commendable poise to produce a superb in swinging yorker that trapped Jonny Powell (5) leg before wicket and sealed victory for Merstham by 26 runs.

Captain Nicholson reflected after the game: “We knew that anything over 150 would probably be par in those conditions, but we owed a huge amount to George Neal for steering us to a total that gave our bowlers something to bowl at. They have been consistently excellent on green wickets this year, and this was probably their finest display of the season.

“Promotion now seems to have eluded us for the time being, but as a young side this season was always going to be mainly focused on consolidating our place in this division. Our priority now is to finish the year with some good performances to carry momentum into next year, and then we will take stock of our squad and start to think about making any necessary additions to aid our push for promotion.”

The second team took a vital win to enhance their chances of staying up in the Surrey Championship Division Four.

They defeated third-placed Purley by just two runs at Quality Street, in a low-scoring game. With three games left, the race to stay up looks tight, with Merstham and the four teams above them covered by 20 points, which is the number of points available for a victory. Merstham face two of them in the coming weeks.

The hosts made 126-8 in their 50 overs, having been asked to bat. Jason Drewett (14) and Ali Pervaiz (29) made a good start for 37 for the first wicket, but two more wickets were lost on 43.

Pervaiz and Jack Letts (19) rallied, Mohsin Ali scored 22, Richard Feist 10 and Struan Clark 16 but scoring was not made easy.

In reply, Merstham had Imran Aslam to thank at the top of the order, taking 4-23 in 10 overs, inter-spliced by Omar Shuja’s caught and bowled of the opening bat. He finished on 1-36 having helped reduce Purley to 16-2.

Tom Jenkins took 3-25 in the middle order and Ali another, with Manish Patel claiming the final wicket with two runs to spare, on only his third ball. All but one of the wickets were catches, with keeper Feist claiming three, Nav Saeed three and Letts two.

Three players scored the majority of the runs as the third team took an excellent victory over Mitcham, who asked the hosts to bat at The Ring.

Bobby Sharp scored 80 opening the batting with teenager Hamza Ali, who struck 35 before being caught. Matt Hill notched 47 in the middle order as the hosts managed 193 all out in the 39th over.

Early wickets by Callum Letts, on his way to 3-32 (he also ran out the number three) and Fergus Carrick (1-13) set Merstham on the way to victory. Another teenager, Afsar Khan, took 3-6 from his four overs to wrap up the victory.

Special mention has to go to Will Sharp, who after a sumptuous tea provided by his parents, took five catches during Mitcham’s innings. The visitors were all out for 66.

The fourth team match suffered from an invasion of caravans at Beddington 5th team’s home ground in Wallington.