Morden won the toss, fielded first and won the game by 7 wickets.
B.Sargent-Cain 5-3-15-1 E.Corrigan 8-4-15-0 C.Louis 5-0-22-1 A.Gilley 6-0-25-4 P.Smith 4-1-20-2
Name How Out Bowler R B M 4 6 C.Louis ct.Bishop Carey 13 30 25 1 P.Bodman not out 37 53 91 5 B.Sargent-Cain ct.Bishop Trenier 4 8 11 1 S.Alexander lbw Carey 31 43 42 5 N.Brooker not out 7 8 10 1 J.Blanchard A.Gilley K.Bromley E.Corrigan P.Smith Extras (b.17,w.4,lb.2,nb.1) 24 Total for 3 wickets (23.3 overs) 115
FOW 1-26, 2-44, 3-104
Ten-man Morden won their last game of the season against nine-man Croham, and therefore ended the season with 4 wins, 1 tie, 4 draws and 8 defeats. Morden are now unbeaten against Croham after 8 games between the sides since the first meeting in 1997. Morden made two changes for this match, replacing John Goddard and Steve Everett with Ed Corrigan and Peter Smith. Phil Bodmin won the toss and put the visitors in, to avoid them being able to play for a draw.
Ben and Ed opened the bowling, and Ben clean bowled one of the openers in the first over. A stubborn partnership for the 2nd wicket lasted nearly an hour until Ben took a superb catch in the covers off Charles' bowling. Allen Gilley and Peter Smith were then brought into the attack, and Alan quuickly took a 'caught & bowled' to remove their left-handed no.3. Peter then took 2 wickets, one caught by Phil Bodmin at deep mid-on, the other clean bowled. After this, some of the tail-enders hit a few fours to nudge the total over 100, but eventually Alan spun them out to finish with 4-25, his best of the season. The innings finished 15 minutes earky with the visitors 114 all out.
The tea interval was spent trying to remember what had happened during the previous 2 hours play, as the Croham scorer hadn't recorded anything apart from his own batsmens' scores, so the Parish bowlers were invited to make up their own propbable bowling figures!
Phil Bodmin's opening partner after tea was Charles Louis, who swung the bat lustily for a quick 13 befor ehe was inevitably caught at mid-on in the 7th over, with the score 26-1. Ben came in at no. 3 but was also caught at mid on, having made 4 to end the season with a handsome total of of 362 runs, a personal best. Steve Alexander came in at 44-2 in the 10th over, aware that he required 3 runs to complete 100 runs for the season. It only took him nine balls to get them, and he carried on to score a superb 31. This was his highest score ever and included 5 fours facing just 43 deliveries and added 60 with Phil for the 3rd wicket. More importantly, he had taken his side to within 11 runs of victory. The visitor's skipper decided to give everybody in his team an over, and we saw some strange deliveries, but Neil Brooker had come in to bat and he was happy to have a swing at anything loose, finishing on 7 not out. At the other end, Phil had the honour of hitting the winning run taking his score to 37 from 53 balls including 5 fours. An excellent way to remember his 100th match as captain of Morden Parish.