RCC 1s beat Merstham by 47 runs

The day didn’t start well when the skipper’s lack of navigation skills had us turning around at Gatwick Airport to get back on the correct route plus losing his fourth consecutive toss to be asked to bat first on what certainly looked like a slow, wet, bowl first track.

As expected, it was slow and low to start off with, with the occasional ball spitting so making batting quite tricky. Batting was clearly going to require patience, which Stick Mowatt demonstrated in abundance. He was watchful, but when the opportunity presented itself, he was ruthless on anything wide and short and was slowly building up an innings. Wickets were falling around him, but Sticky was in the zone and nothing was going to upset his rhythm. He was ably supported by Martin Crozier and Nick Hoadley and new boy Sacha Hateea showed glimpses of his talent, but Stick was controlling the RCC innings and at the end was very unlucky to be run out for an excellent 77. A couple of quick fire runs by Paul Fuchs and Tom Easton at the end gave RCC a very respectable 179 all out.

Due to Merstham getting through their overs quickly, they now had 47 overs instead of 44 to reach their target (and giving us an additional 3 overs to bowl them out).

Due to the slowness of the pitch, RCC opened up with the old ball and made an immediate breakthrough, with Paul Fuchs bowling a rank long hop, but the batsman trying to smash his first ball and ended up slashing to gully, where Sacha Hateaa took an incredible catch on the second grab. The good start continued and soon Merstham were 20 for 3, with Nick Freeborn taking 2 of his 3 catches behind the stumps. Enter Merstham batsman number 5 who probably hit the most extravagant 24 ever seen in the league with all 24 runs coming through cow corner. Eventually, he tried an off side shot and was well caught by Jules Vereker. Wickets continued to fall and Fuchsy and Tom Easton were bowling well in tandem with the new ball, but at 8 down, it seemed that Merstham were shutting up shop. The ball was tossed to JV who made a breakthrough and Merstham were 9 down. The 47 overs were up, but we still had time on our side (another 20 minutes to be exact), so RCC were racing to get as many overs in as possible. 51 overs in and more importantly, 8 minutes to spare, RCC finally took the last wicket and another 20 points in the bag.

Thanks to Jason Pawluk for being so on top of his umpiring game (we, ie. me, would have had no idea about the time issue).

Next week its Ripley the rematch and we look forward to making it 3 wins on the bounce.

Man of the match: Stick Mowatt
(report by Paul Fuchs)