The 3s made the trip down to Epsom in high spirits with a strong looking team and a glorious forecast. Badger thrilled us with tales of how he used to wear a thigh guard but now doesn’t, what more could you want from Saturday cricket?!

Fahad won the toss and stuck us in. We got off to a strong start, Ben and Badger complementing each other well, with some beautifully timed shots straight to fielders from Badger and aggressive strokes all round from Ben. Sadly it was short lived as Badger pushed one back to their opener. Oppo then turned to their spin option who we frankly made look like Murali and a quick who had the audacity to bowl above a medium pace trundle. The spinner made light work of our middle order, inducing false shots from Ben, Fahad and Rob, all of whom looked to be going well. With Joe succumbing to a decent catch at deep cover (a stroke I had ‘shotted’ before it found the fielder), we were in trouble, 65-5 at drinks. There was a brief glimmer as Zohaib and Ravi combined lusty blows and some questionable running to push us towards 100. Alas some decent grabs and classic tailend batting saw us all out for 95.

After some lacklustre catching practice we were back out in the field, Zohaib and Sadeed opening up. Zohaib was wayward to start but pulled it back with a tidy few overs. If Sadeed could have bowled at both ends we may have come away with a victory, his spin working a little bit of magic off the green deck finishing with a 3 fer from his full complement of 8 overs. Fahad produced the champagne moment with a return catch plucked inches off the turf but the rest of us were unable to muster a wicket. The less said about my solitary over in particular, the better and before long it was a foregone conclusion. Joe was brought into the attack and with the help of some generous umpiring (so they didn’t win it on wides), finally landed one on the strip that was put away to seal the win for Wallington. Sadly more helmets kicked into the grass than points for the 3s this week, but we go again next week.

By Tom Beach