Firsts lose, threes and fours keep up winning ways

Ian Lamont 20 May, 2022

Merstham first team couldn't maintain their winning start to the season in the Surrey County League Division Two, but the third and fourth team maintained their unbeaten starts.

Sheen Park elected to bat against the first team and amassed 229-7 in their 45 overs (Luke Ashbery 103 not out). Humayoon Nasir bagged 2-35 off nine overs. Captain Ed Dawson (27), Daniel Kite (14), Andy Rivers (36) and Jaikumar Uvaraju (29) all made starts, but the hosts couldn't keep up with the run rate and finished on 167-7.

The second team were all out for 57, chasing 220 at Thames Ditton.

The third team chased Kingstonian's total of 194 (Luke Sanders bagging 2-25 and Alex Reeves 3-30, Richard Pitt 2-30). In reply, Jo Czerpak opened the innings with 103 with Ollie Barkwith (22) keeping him company the longest. Hamish Walker and Reeves were unbeaten at the end.

Merstham 4s looked to capitalise on their opening day victory against Chipstead Coulsdon & Walcountians by chalking up their second victory of the campaign.

Captain Gopa Nair won the toss and elected to bat. At first, this looked like the wrong decision with the opposition opening bowlers starting well and having Merstham at 30-3. Steve Duncan came in and steadied the batting line up and had a good fifth wicket partnership with the captain which saw the runs total up to 90-6 when both were out within a few overs.

A brilliant 42 and 24 from Dilhan Jayamanne and Omar Shuja respectively saw the runs total up to 172 all out of 39.4 overs.

Things start well for Merstham in the field with Shuja and Finlay Willshire bowling tightly to open the innings. Shuja took the wickets of batters two and three in the first few overs. Senthil Rajaram came on as first bowling change for Willshire and took out two more wickets in quick succession.

The bowling and fielding remained tight from Merstham. Nair then brought himself on to bowl and was rewarded with the key wickets of their opener and also their top scoring bat, before bringing the Spin King (Jayamanne) in to the attack to take another two, for Willshire to come back in to the take at his more end to mop up the innings.