10:28am Wednesday 1st September 2010
Woodmansterne finish eighth in the league after losing to Haslemere in their final match of the season.
Their second XI earned promotion to the Premier Division of their league with an eight-wicket win at Kempton, Jason Hiscox taking a career best 7-20 before Ian Miller hit 60 not out.
Woods thirds finished third in their league, just short of promotion, despite a 35 run win over Kempton.
After fumbling the final pass last weekend, Woodmansterne II were in no mood to do so again and squander the promotion a hard competitive season had made a possibility, so it was especially pleasing to secure a convincing eight-wicket victory to claim promotion.
It needed to be, as three of the four chasing teams also won.
Winning the toss with a last-minute change of call to ‘Tails’, skipper Hiren Patel took one look at the damp green wicket and opted to bowl first, opening with Peter Aldous and Martin Corbett.
A disgruntled Aldous struggled with his footing and had to be removed after only two overs, being replaced by Alex Squires.
Corbett at the other end settled into a good rhythm and soon had rewards with Porter bowled and Widdrington LBW for a 27-ball duck.
Squires meanwhile was struggling to control the extravagant movement and variable bounce he was obtaining, making the normally immaculate keeping of Leaver look shoddy for once.
With almost 20 overs gone and only two wickets taken Patel opted to change the pace of the attack and introduced slow bowlers Ollie Houghton and Jason Hiscox.
This immediately had the effect of slowing the scoring, followed shortly after by Hiscox picking up the wicket of Palekar, caught by Chirag Patel at point (one of three catches for him on the day).
Neville followed soon after playing over a Hiscox slower ball and then Hiscox really put the kibosh on the innings by removing a hampered Trevor Warne LBW to an in-ducker.
Houghton bowled a fine spell at the other end (0-41 off 13 overs) but without reward as Miller spilled a comfortable chance at slip and his doosra just slid past off stump to a batsman playing no shot.
At the other end Hiscox continued to plug away and kept getting rewards as a succession of Kempton batsmen in turn chipped gently swinging balls to fielders or missed the ‘other one’, returning a career best 7-20 off 15 overs.
With nine wickets down Corbett (3-33) was recalled at the other end and having seen Natarajan charge and slap him over midwicket had his revenge a few balls later when a similar attempt resulted in a skied ball to Miller at cover, leaving Woods 131 to chase down.
After tea the chase started steadily enough, with Hiren Patel and Robbie Joyce patient but still positive.
Loveridge managed to get Patel (17) to attempt an expansive drive – bowled through the gate again.
His replacement Ian Miller was calmness personified as he defended the good balls and pummelled the bad ones on his way to 50, whilst Joyce (34) was generally looking unflustered (one easy drop at slip notwithstanding) until an innocuous ball from Dylan Patel snuck through his defences to end his innings with Woods well set at 107-2.
Chirag Patel (6no) came out to provide sensible support to Miller (60no) and see Woods home to a comprehensive victory.
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