Morden fielded first and won the game by 6 wickets.
J.Goddard 8-2-11-0 P.Clarke 8-1-31-1 B.Sargent-Cain 8-1-19-2 A.Gilley 8-2-22-1 C.Louis 8-2-15-1
Name How Out Bowler R M 4 6 C.Louis run out 30 31 4 2 M.Gilley not out 37 77 7 I.Tyne ct. & b Darke.M 0 10 P.Clarke ct. Darke.M Yelland 32 28 4 2 N.Brooker lbw Enin 0 3 A.Gilley not out 4 5 J.Goddard B.Sargent-Cain S.Alexander R.Atkins C.Skillern Extras (nb.1) 1 Total for 4 wickets (21.3 overs) 104
FOW 1-45, 2-58, 3-98, 4-98
Morden claimed their first victory of the season with an excellent performance against Epsom Methodists. Morden fielded first and produced one of their best ever bowling and fielding displays to restrict Epsom to 102 from 40 overs. Charles and Phil then tucked into the opposition bowling while Maurice provided a steadier head at the other end. Morden reached their target with plenty of overs in hand and 6 wickets remaining.
John and Phil opened the bowling, keeping it tight supported well by the fielders. During the rain break, a plan was devised to rotate the 5 bowlers through the 40 overs. So after 5 overs each, Ben and Alan replaced John and Phil and it was in the 16th over that Alan made the breakthrough with an LBW decision. A couple of overs later the dangerous number 3 was run out by a decent throw from John and some great keeping by Neil. Morden waited until the 25th over until they got their next wicket and then 2 came in the final 2 balls of Ben's spell. He bowled the number 4 and then got the number 5 lbw next ball. He'll be on a hat-trick in the next game!!! Charles picked up his first wicket of the season when Neil stumped the remaining opener, who was giving Charles the charge in an attempt to raise the run rate. From a good 5 metres behind the stumps, Neil managed to hit the wickets before the batsman could get back in his ground. Phil picked up the last wicket to fall when Alan took a good catch from a lofted drive. The Morden fielding was impressive with pressure applied to incoming batsmen and some cat like fielding from Russ, Ian, Maurice and in particular Chris whose sliding tackle to save 4 goes down in my memory as one of the most committed acts of fielding in recent times.
When Morden batted Charles and Maurice took the attack to Epsom, with Charles depositing a couple of big sixes over the boundary. The partnership had cruised comfortably to 45, the highest so far this season, before this quick running pair took one too many chances with a quick single that saw Charles run out, although the fielders seemed to be going in slow motion as they got the ball to the stumps. This brought Ian "Slogger" Tyne to the crease and after a couple of outrageous forward defensive strokes the urge to try and deposit the bowler over the boundary got the better of him and he skied a caught and bowled chance that the bowler did well to cling on to! Phil Clarke was able to come in and play some shots, although he did struggle to get going missing the ball a couple of times as he tried to swat it away. His timing soon joined him in the middle and he crunched 4 fours and 2 sixes in 28 minutes to take Morden within reach of the target. One shot too many saw Phil caught and this brought Neil to the crease. Sadly, he was trapped LBW without scoring and Alan was left with the task of hitting the final boundary to seal the victory. In the meantime Maurice had accumulated 37 runs and leads the way in the batting charts this season with an aggregate and average of 65 after 2 innings.
Stats are on their way, but it's late Monday night, I'm tired and I want to go to bed, so you'll have to make do with the match report for now!