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09-06-07
click here for match scorecard
Earl Stonham visited Easton for the second time this season and were
greeted by a warm sun and a hard pitch. Stonham won the toss and elected
to bat against a team who only had four players remaining from the first
meeting of the sides this season.
Stonham started slowly and lost Rob Wrinch early on to a fine catch at
slip. John Hails hit the ball crisply, battering H Renfield from the
bowling attack early. However, he only made it to 18 before he was
bowled. All of the Stonham batsmen were having trouble scoring runs with
J Keeble extracting variable bounce from the wicket, R Wimal bowling
accurately and Wimal's replacement F Mitchell finding some turn. Ed
Player only managed 9 before being caught out trying to improve the run
rate. Simon Edgar perished in similar fashion after adding 15 and David
Eade could only add 2 more. Charlie Tunstall joined Stephen Lewis is the
middle and the run rate began to improve. However, it couldn't last as S
Lewis picked up an injury requiring a runner and C Tunstall found
another pair of Easton hands on 11. Soon after Tunstall's departure the
inevitable happened - S Lewis was run out on 31. Paul Adams butchered a
hard hitting 28 including two huge sixes. Stonham reached a
light-looking 151 for 8 in their forty five overs.
The Easton reply got off to a quick start with D Marriot immediately
swinging for the big hit. He made a rapid 20 before being removed by Tom
Prior, with Charlie Tunstall causing all kinds of bother to the other
batsmen at the other end. Two quick wickets brought Stonham to a
promising position but D McMillan and R Fernley began to rebuild the
innings. McMillan hit the ball sweetly (including two sixes) and looked
to be taking the game away from Stonham. T Prior once again made the
breakthrough clean bowling McMillian for 38. Jeff Lewis bowled a very
tight spell, his thirteen overs going for a miserly twenty runs, with
three wickets to boot. With the game teetering on a knife edge F
Mitchell batted with confidence and skillfully maneuvered the remaining
batsmen of the Easton tail (and in fact the whole innings) so that
Easton required seven to win from the last over with three wickets
remaining. Mitchell himself was on strike and Stonham covered the
boundary in the knowledge that singles would not be enough to win.
Mitchell, aware of this, wasted no time in finding the biggest hole in
the field and hit consecutive fours to win the game and end on a well
deserved 37no.
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