Flower Show fails to rock Claygate

With the Claygate Flower Show robbing the Cricket Club of many of its top players as they succumbed to the pressure to spend an afternoon with the marrows and marigolds rather than the bat and ball, the two league sides performed creditably well. 

A solid start for the 1 st XI saw ever reliable Matt Weston (61) and newcomer Richard Jarratt (47) put on 100 for the first wicket at Nutfield. Contributions from Chris Howe (43), Chris Lewis (36) and Vikram Prabhakar (31 not out) saw Claygate reach 257/7 declared. Nutfield were never really up with rate and finished on 190/7 with 3 dropped catches not helping Claygate’s cause in pursuit of victory as Tom McKinley returned the best figures with 4/32 with a wicket apiece for skipper Dillon Woods, Chris Lewis and Nuwan Jayasena. A slightly disappointing winning draw.

With the Claygate Flower Show in full flow, thoughts of those marrows and marigolds were left behind as the 2 nd XI played their home game at the picturesque Shrewsbury House School ground in Chessington. Claygate 2 nd XI bowled well to keep a second place Nutfield side to 128 all out with the increasingly impressive Dave Price taking 5-34 supported by Justin Hannaford (2-37), Dick Murphy (2-19) and Joel Watkins (1-22). Some good fielding included a full length diving caught and bowled by Dave Price and wicket-keeper Rufus Legg’s full length dive down the leg side to remove the Nutfield skipper. Claygate tried to make life difficult for themselves losing their first three wickets for 49 runs but Rufus Legg batted through for 70 not out, ably supported by skipper James McPhail and all-rounder Dave Price to secure a 6-wicket victory.

However the two Sunday sides did not fare so well, losing to Oxshott and Caterham. The Sunday 1 st XI were put in at Oxshott, recovering well from 71/4 to reach 217/6 declared with classy 50s from Nick French and Jamie Paul. With Oxshott at 96/4 in reply (Luke Webb 2/28), the game might have gone either way but three expensive overs on the trot propelled the Oxshott innings forward and they did not look back winning by 6 wickets with 3 overs to spare.

The Sunday 2 nd XI batted first against Caterham reaching 170/9 with Lord Lucan Nicholls top-scoring with 43, Alun Cope-Morgan (39) and Danny Simmons (25) the other main contributors. Despite a fighting effort from the Claygate bowlers (Ben Seabrook 2-28 and mercurial skipper Peter Hartnell 1-37 using every trick in the book), they could not quite hold Caterham back.