Chairman's 'Player's' XII v President's Earl Stonham XII

Once again Earl Stonham welcomed friends old and new to play in the yearly Presidents XI vs Chairmans XI encounter. For the second year running John Player generously helped make up the numbers, drafting in several generations of his family. Captained by Ed Player, they represented the Chairman's side, with Simon Edgar captaining the President's team.

Scott Eade and Terry Baker opened the bowling for the President's XI, and both made early inroads into the Chairman's batting order. With the score teetering at 13-4 Tom Player joined his brother Ed at the crease, where they proceeded to steady the innings and pile on the runs. The bowling was varied with most of the fielding side getting it's chance with the ball, yielding differing degrees of success. The partnership was eventually undone by an unfortunate slip by Tom, which lead to him being run out by some electric fielding. Ed shortly followed Tom after passing his fifty when he was undone by a David Eade 'special', punctuated with a "That's got him!" from the bowler as the ball bounced for the second time on the track and tickled the bails from the stumps. There was further resistance lower in the order as Christopher Daniel (CD) Player and Tom Bosher put some questionable bowling to the sword. Bosher was particularly ruthless, smearing Jonathan Hails' efforts towards and over the boundary. Chris, the last Player, was eventually ousted by a superb running/diving catch just inside the rope from Charlie Tunstall, who has earlier removed a not insignificant portion of the middle order with a quick and impressively straight line. The Player/Chairman side finished with a respectable 175.

The Chairman's XI made steady progress with the ball right from the beginning of the innings. CD Player opened with Mike Stickland, and both caused problems. Jonathan Hails battled well, finding the boundary with ease, and looked in good touch until he was run out. Few of his team mates batted with much success until Simon Edgar came to the crease. He batted strongly, scoring the runs his teammates had struggled to amass. With partners running out, and the game seamingly out of reach, he was joined by Scott Eade. Not usually recognised for his batting, Eade defended stoutly and provided Edgar with the opportunity to score some runs. When Eade eventually fell he was replaced by last man Scott Gregory, playing only his second game. He also played heroically, allowing the scores to become closer and closer. Edgar passed his half century, having put on a considerable amount of runs partnering the two Scotts. Unfortunately for him, with overs running out, he was caught out after guiding his side to only 22 runs short of their target in a thrilling chase.