Long Ditton v St Lukes – friendly – Sunday 20 May 2007

With two players crying off at 11:15am, the remaining nine players (including Ollie Heath’s dad) gathered at the idyllic Long Ditton ground expecting a tough game. The opponents lent us a spare player and St Lukes took to the field. Dougal McFarlane and Ven Krishnamurthy opened the bowling and both had good spells. Honours went to Dougal taking the first three wickets with Jon Breaden taking a brace of catches. However, a fourth wicket partnership of over 100 put Long Ditton on top until Matthew Cobb and Joe Horgan (on loan) took two wickets each towards the end of the innings and Long Ditton declared at tea on 206-7. A reasonable fielding performance included a couple of catches for Roy Yatali behind the stumps.

Despite the early loss of Ven, St Lukes batted with confidence and got on top of the bowling. Jon scored 27 and had an important second wicket partnership of 31 with Dougal who then shared a stand of 62 with Matthew (31). Dougal was finally out one short of his half-century with the score on 126-5, but the tail failed to wag and the innings ended 140 all out, a defeat of 66 runs.

Lovely ground and pitch, excellent teas, good weather and a very enjoyable match. Let’s hope there is support for the Sunday side and that we will have a team for the second fixture against Long Ditton in July.

Man of the Match – Dougal McFarlane