Byfleet winning draw

On a gloriously sunny day at the Heath, Byfleet won the toss and elected to bat. Sam Stevens made an early breakthrough, courtesy of a Will Hunting catch at first slip, where the ball rolled up his arm for what seemed like minutes, only to fall safely into his hands. However, after this Byfleet hit their stride and were scoring at will and really putting the fielders under pressure. Both batsmen soon reached 50 and we were looking at a long afternoon in the field. After conceeding a few expensive overs, Paul Fuchs finally made the breakthrough and this seemed to slow the scoring down a bit. The skipper then had a bit of a good spell, taking a hat-trick in the process and putting Byfleet on the backfoot. However, some good batting and some excellent running from the Byfleet opener (who went on to make 109) soon had them in excess of 200 runs. A Stick Mowatt direct hit had him walking back and in the end, I think that Roehampton did very well to restrict Byfleet to 222 on what was a very good track and a lightning fast outfield.

Despite Roehampton having to score at 5 an over from the outset, Byfleet were very negative, opening with spin and having 4 men out on the boundary from over 1. As a result, there were plenty of singles on offer that openers Sean Farrell and Scott Costello exploited although this still didn’t stop Sean from hitting a few magnificent shots into the Putney Heath shrubbery. After a solid start, there were a flurry of wickets, but soon Sean and Phil Dorsett had us back on track. Some questionable umpiring decisions from the opposition umpire soon had Sean and Phil back in the pavilion (after Sean had hit a very elegant 60 and Phil a quick fire 29 off just 24 balls) and we were now looking at the winning draw target of 184 instead of the winning total of 222. Things were getting very tight, but Will Hunting in particular kept us in the game and the winning draw target was certainly in sight. However, after Will fell with the total on 180 (this was the total that the opposition umpire had given us as the winning draw total), the skipper had 1 ball to survive to ensure that we did not lose the game.

All in all, this was certainly a game we should have won, but we did show some fighting spirit in keeping Byfleet down to 222 after we were looking at chasing 250+.

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