Old Wimbledonians 236, 49.5 overs; Warlingham 160, 45 overs.

Following this 76 run defeat, the First’s league status will be “re-aligned” to Division 4. Old Wimbledonians, who were also struggling to maintain Division 3 status, are the only team that Warlingham have beaten this year, but they were better side in this match at Coombe Lane.

The home team benefitted from an excellent innings of 82 in 105 balls at the top of the order by their occasional player, Navin Nayak. His second-wicket partnership of 145 with Greg Atherstone, who made 41 (he never made this many for us), set up the challenging first innings total of 236 all out after Warlingham won the toss and decided to field first. Our bowlers were unable to contain Wimbledonian’s batsmen and by the time Nayak was eventually caught off Devik Amin the run rate was well over 5 per over. Despite a middle-order collapse, in which Devik Amin took two further wickets, the hosts recovered from 178-6 to 236 before Mahesh Amin took the last two wickets in the final over. Devik’s 3-36 from 10 overs was his best yet for the ones, Uncle was as economical as ever with 2-29 from 9.5 overs, and Shane took 3-21 from 7 on his return to the side, but they did not receive enough support from the other bowlers.

Warlingham’s second wicket pairing of Shane Patel and Dan Chrystie, promoted to number 3 in the absence of Alex Pizzey, batted well and kept the scoreboard ticking over at about the required rate, but Shane was well caught by Jaco Louw (remember him? – quiet unassuming chap who won’t say boo to a goose) for 31. The introduction of the slower bowlers, Louw, Cezar Redeker and Donald Dunsmore, slowed the scoring but Chrystie reached his maiden First XI 50 from 71 balls. However, he was bowled immediately afterwards and Johnny Morris was out in the same over. Nigel, batting at 4, looked as solid as ever in his 36, but the rest of the order batted as befits a team at the bottom of the table. All three spinners gave us problems but it was Dunsmore who took the wickets, 6-26 in his 10 overs; and we were all out for 160.

Warlingham: Nishan Naidoo, Shane Patel, Dan Chrystie, Nigel Field, Johnny Morris, Andy McNamee, Hitesh Patel, Wes Lind, Nihal Patel, Devik Amin, Mahesh Amin.

MCJW – 25/08/2009

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