Putney Play Memorable Game Down in Sussex

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Slinfold steal victory in final overs after visitors looked set for win

Putney Firsts and Slinfold played out another memorable game of cricket, as our 'there and back in a day' tour of the Sussex countryside continued. We opened the batting with Will Middleton (45) starting off with some fine front foot drives. Slinfold made early breakthroughs to remove Max and then a little later Sam Sud (the youth policy). However James Peters entered the fray and struck a quick confident 50, including one four which went straight up in the sky and landed just in front of the spectators and then rolled over the boundary.

The middle order included a brief all Sri Lankan partnership with Chinny adding 26 and Barry 11 respectively., However it was the tail that really wagged with James Hannaford making his highest score of 17 and Charlie Smulian also belting their bowler for a great six on the offside.

The Putney innings closed on 213 with a comedy moment, as Paul McCann appeared to hit one of the last few balls for a six, but it then ended up being dropped by their fielder on the boundary, who then promptly picked the ball up, threw at the stumps and ran Paul out, who was bemused, like all of us.

Slinfold were chasing 214, their openers were selective and effective at cutting anything that was a little loose for boundaries and they reached 50 fairly quickly. However we then made our first breakthrough and Will Middleton came on to bowl to take a few more wickets. Slinfold continued to push the the run rate, but the match swung back our way when Fents clean bowled one of their batsman who was striking the ball well to all parts of the ground. Chinny did the same at the other end with a ball that just clipped the bail. With Slinfold now 5 wickets down and needing 63 off the last 7 overs at 9 an over, and then 40 odd off the last 4 overs, we were still seemingly the favourites. However, Slinfold's Kiwi batsman 'Hayden' hit out at the end and some dropped catches and one or two expensive overs, cost us the game.

So, we lost in the last over, but maintained a fine tradition of close recent games here. It was a good day out for more than half the team who caught the train from London and, as always, we enjoyed a good tea and post match drinks afterwards with Steve Young (a former Putney skipper) that keeps us all looking forward to next year's trip.

Barry P

September 1, 2011