Friendly Match

New Ash Green 209-5 declared (30.2 overs)
Borden 110-7 (43 overs)
Draw.

What was supposed to be a mixed 1st and 3rd XI ended up rather closer to 1st than 3rd after a number of the original selection dropped out and their replacements were mostly stronger players, although that 3rd team regular A. N. Other did make an appearance (or non-appearance). Despite a very damp wicket New Ash Green therefore batted first with a degree of confidence, but soon lost Matt Meehan after he played his trademark shot for 4 first ball but edged behind 3rd ball. Marc Klus, in his first senior game of the season following injury, played some uncertain shots, but got away with them for a while before dragging one of his better shots into mid-wicket's hands for 25. Matthew Scanlan was also well caught by a diving gully fielder after flinging his bat at a wide one. This brought Vic Mayers to the wicket to join Matthew Quantrill, with the score on 86-3. For a while both played steadily, Quantrill having started slowly and taken his time to adjust to the difficult wicket. However having taken 67 balls to reach 43 he finally became tempted by the short straight boundary downwind and launched a huge six into the next field. Now there was no stopping him, and in 27 balls he added a further 74 runs to his total, including 7 sixes, 3 of them in a single over. Although one of them only just cleared the boundary fielder with the aid of the wind another three went clear over the trees into the neighbouring field, and once he was past 100 he even added a six into the wind and a pull to the square leg boundary which felled an old lady, fortunately because she ducked rather than by a direct hit. In the meantime Vic Mayers had been playing a magnificent supporting role, running superbly and giving Quantrill the strike, though he was only deprived of his own huge 6 to mid-wicket by the local rules which give only 4 runs for a ball hitting the overhanging trees. When he was finally bowled for 41 the partnership for the fourth wicket was worth 123, with Quantrill on 117*. Nigel McCloskey was then LBW to the next ball and with no one else padded up to give the bowler his hat-trick ball New Ash Green declared half an hour early on 209-5.

Unfortunately due to a delay in tea being ready New Ash Green didn't gain much benefit from their early declaration even when they managed to bowl 22 overs in the final hour. With the strong wind which had been blowing all day having dried the pitch out considerably New Ash Green tried a variety of bowlers with limited success, and Borden took few risks, in particular opener David Roche who had obviously set his stall out from the start to bat for the draw. Although he was beaten a number of times by Andy Payne's spin he survived to the end to be 16 not out (an innings of which New Ash Green's very own Steve Lockyer would have been proud!) with Borden ending on 110-7, 100 runs short of their victory target. Andy Payne bowled 15 overs of spin and took 2-23, strangely enough both wickets caught and bowled to bad shots off bad balls, though he bowled plenty of more deserving balls without success. Marc Klus took 2-18 in 7 overs and Andy Stuart 2-10 in 6, and once again New Ash Green held all their chances, including another superb slip catch from Andy Payne off Matt Meehan's first ball, but in the end it was all to no avail.

New Ash Green II v Bromley Town II
Saturday 25th May 2002

Kent League Match - 100 overs

New Ash Green (20 pts) 154-9 (50 overs)
Bromley Town (4 pts) 107 all out (40.5 overs)
New Ash Green won by 47 runs.

After Pete 'Nasser Hussain' Burke lost the toss for the fourth game in a row, Bromley Town somewhat surprisingly decided to bowl first - surprising as they played the first 30-40 minutes with only 7 players! As a consequence of the resulting wide open spaces in the field (not to mention the return of His Majesty John Harding and the continued solid batting of Darren Phillips) NAG finally managed to get themselves a good start, reaching 65 without loss at about 4 an over. At this stage a score of 200 looked very much on the cards. And then it came - no not the expected rain, but the now traditional batting collapse. The openers departed for respectable scores of 31 a piece; however Adolphe, John, Shannon and Hobbs managed to score just 4 between them. Kieran Hoddinott added a patient 6 before he was also out leaving NAG on 104 for 7 with 7 or 8 overs left. A score of anything between 110 and 160 looked possible at this point. Fortunately Chris Hoddinott continued his improved form with 29* and Pete Burke (promoted to number 9 after his previous weeks heroics) added a quickfire 25 off 21 balls (including an all run 4 which he was literally speechless (breathless?) about) before being stumped off the penultimate ball of the innings. Mick Sumner then attempted to hit the final ball of the innings out of the ground - but was also stumped, leaving Bromley bowler Paul Jones on a hat-trick for the next game. His overall figures were 4 for 31 off 17, but this was bettered by Ian Porter who took 5 for 31 off 18.

Bromley's reply started well - Mick Sumner was his usual menacing self, but got no luck at all and finished with no wickets from his 14 overs. His usual opening bowling partner Pete Burke was, to be frank, bloody awful and was lucky to only go for 20 runs (but was also to blame for most of the byes) off his first four overs. Paul Sumner replaced him, and as if by magic, NAG got a wicket (albeit a run out) out of nothing after some sharp work by Dominic Adolphe - definitely one of the most mobile slip fielders in the league! Paul Sumner bowled an economical spell of 0 for 8 off 6, but by this stage Bromley were starting to look on the way to victory as they had lots of wickets and overs in hand. Pete Burke decided to bring himself back on and certainly benefited from the rest as he ended up with figures of 4 for 9 off 10 in this spell. With Mick Sumner starting to look tired, Graham Hobbs was given the ball to see if he could prise some more wickets and he certainly did the trick with a devastating burst of 5 for 14 off 6.5 overs, including the key wicket of opener Tony Browning, well caught by Duncan Shannon (who excelled in the field the whole game) for 45. From this point on, NAG looked favourites to secure victory, which they duly did.

New Ash Green v Old Pilotonians
Sunday 26th May

Friendly Match

Match abandoned - rain.