Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th July
Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th July
Kent Regional Cricket League - 46 Overs per side
New Ash Green (3pts) 43 all out (26.1 overs)
Holborough (20 pts) 45-2 (13.1 overs)
New Ash Green lost by 8 wickets
The broken toe of Mick Sumner left Andy Mayers in charge at short notice, but he was delayed in the morning, and on his phoned instructions New Ash Green won the toss and batted first. Given that Andy was late and Vic stuck in traffic it would have been a struggle to bowl, but they made a mess of batting against an attack which mostly did not reflect the league position of Holborough, being relatively gentle. Nonetheless the batsmen mostly managed to hit poor or unthreatening balls in the air, with only Vic Mayers, bowled by one that darted in, able to blame anyone other than themselves for their dismissal. Sharnie Hussain's figures were helped distinctly by the apparent inability of the Holborough umpire to see his front foot landing 6 inches to a foot over the line on a regular basis, and although the batsmen should still have played better that did tarnish the bowling somewhat. Karl Bartlett played the one relatively good innings, and a last wicket stand between Ashley Woodward and Matt Bushe showed what could be achieved with a little application.
43 was clearly never going to be enough, but there were some bright points. Andy Mayers caused some discomfort with a few quickish balls, and Ashley Woodward bowled a very tidy spell on his 1st XI debut, picking up his first wicket with a lovely ball edged behind, and in the end only conceding significant runs from edges. Andy Mayers also picked up a deserved wicket, getting the dangerous Chris Skilton caught and bowled, but without being comfortable the remaining batsmen made their way to victory without too many alarms.
Scorecard
Current League Table
Kent Regional Cricket League - 46 Overs per side
New Ash Green conceded
The weekend of supposed high availability turned into a nightmare, to the extent that the second team game had to be called off on Thursday, and with further drop outs later on it turned out to be the correct decision, if highly frustrating when numbers seemed to have been improving.
More effort to be available is urgently needed for the rest of the season to show that there is enough interest to justify keeping two sides running.
Friendly Match - Proper Cricket
Arlott 217-4 (35 overs)
New Ash Green 171-3 (33 overs)
Match Drawn
Any suggestion that Saturday's low scores were to be blamed on the wicket were dispelled by a high scoring draw on the same wicket on Sunday, but with both teams being extraordinary slow with their over rate the game petered out somewhat. Arlott batted on rather longer than was perhaps necessary in terms of time and score, but given New Ash Green bowled only 35 overs in more than 2 ½ hours they could hardly complain. Arlott started slowly, with an early wicket for John Harley, and Andy Harrington picked up two more as New Ash Green looked to have the upper hand, but the number 4, Tolman, launched an early attack on the bowling with a flurry of boundaries, and although he slowed down and was eventually LBW to Mark Chapelhow the momentum remained with Arlott until they eventually declared on 217.
New Ash Green's openers fell early, but from 9-2 they rarely looked troubled. Andy Harrington made a brisk 30, and then Chris Bartram and Mark James saw them through to the end with an unbeaten century partnership. Bartram became only the third New ash Green player to pass 50 in the season, being especially strong on anything he could hit to the short leg side boundary, with several sixes, while James looked very solid in his first innings of the season. The early bowling was tight enough that even with the big hitting later on they were never really in with a shout of making the total, but a very comfortable draw was a good result.