Greg Routley hits 117 but Sunday XI lose to Sheen Park

Sunday Friendly

Sheen Park 213 for 4 (40 overs)

Stoke D’Abernon 194 all out (33.2 overs)

Sheen Park won by 19 runs

Adam Cooke reports…

This weekend Stoke hosted Sheen Park in a hotly contested match. This was not the original after the original oppositon could not raise a side. Sheen Park responded to a fixture advert and helped produce a great game!

Stoke fielded a squad with an average age of just twenty-three with five under 15s playing; Harry Oliphant and James Corbishley making their first Sunday XI appearances. Adam Cooke won the toss and elected to bowl first on what was predicted to be a day with no rain and sunny intervals. The usual opening partnership of Lloyd and Parrett bowled tight lines, restricted Sheen’s run rate to barely three an over and they were very unfortunate to not get the breakthrough that was necessary.

As always Roy Johns, who came on first change, struck straight away with his second ball going to Mike Carty at first slip in a comfortable catch. Nazir and Ashberry put on a seventy run partnership before Johns got the second breakthrough clean bowling Nazir, the young opener for thirty-seven. The captain came on second change and the traditional full toss loosener got Ashberry shortly after getting his half century with Corbishley taking a good catch at long-on.

Only one more wicket would fall to James Trower, who ended up with figures of 6-0-25-1 bowling very well at the death, thanks to Carty taking a stunning catch at short cover out of self preservation more than anything else! Difficult chances went down throughout the innings but in the end Sheen Park ended on 213-4, Quinn and Dave finishing unbeaten on 16 and 26 respectively. The pick of the bowlers were Johns, (8-3-33-2) and Trower (6-0-25-1), but they were backed up with accurate bowling from the others.

Sam Bradford-Smith and Cooke started the innings of but both fell quickly to the Patel’s accurate bowling, as did Corbishley which resulted in Stoke quickly stumbling to 15-3. Trower and Greg Routley went about the repair work and got stoke moving towards the 214 target. Sublime cover drives from Trower carried him to 25 before chipping a ball to cover, a real shame as the young batsman hadn’t been troubled by the oppositions bowling attack.

This reunited the big hitters at the crease, Mike ‘The Beast’ Carty and Greg Routley, for a short-lived yet explosive partnership. Carty fell to a dubious lbw decision but not before clearing the boundary. The entertainment continued for a long time though, thanks to Routley continuously clearing the boundary to reach his maiden half century. He kept at it smashing glorious shots over long off and cover, which included a railway bound six to carry him to his maiden century much to everyone’s delight!

Sadly wickets continued to tumble at the other end as Michael Dolman and Oliphant supported Routley with 15 and 1 respectively. With Stoke well ahead of the run-rate, largely down to Sheen Park’s twelve(!) dropped catches off Routley’s batting, wickets continued to fall as Routley departed for an impressive 117, (off of 46 scoring shots and there weren’t many dots!), leaving Lloyd and Parrett to face the last eight overs needing just two runs from each of them to secure victory.

Unfortunately Lloyd ran himself out with seventeen to win and Johns was clean bowled shortly after.

Stoke lost by 17 runs but another great game of cricket was produced between these two sides, whose friendship will hopefully continue for many years to come because Sheen Park have requested to play us twice next year; home and away! So even though we lost, a moral victory was won for the club and cricket as a whole. 

Scorecard Link : http://sdacc.play-cricket.com/scoreboard/scorecard.asp?id=11003290