Cooper Barrels Englefield Green with Mead

Effingham 2nd XI .v. Englefield Green

Sat.28th May 2017 – Fuller’s Brewery Surrey County League – 3rd Div

The players gathered for the 2nd XI match at Calburn Cricket Field, keen to get their campaign up and running after stumbling in the first two weeks. The weather was hot and captain Asim Iqbal won an important toss to ensure that Englefield Green were consigned to a long afternoon in the field.

After losing Josh Farrell cheaply, thirteen year old Adam Iqbal and the evergreen Martin Keay piled on the runs, going at over 6 an over until Adam Iqbal was clean bowled with the score on 77. This brought vice-captain Mal Russell to the wicket who proceeded to hit a powerful straight drive, which unfortunately was tipped by the bowler onto the wicket to run out Martin Keay, who scored an excellent 43 off just 36 balls, including 7 fours and a six. Mal had not settled by the next ball and his expansive drive resulted in the timbers falling and the opposition were in the game.

But not for long! Fifteen year old Harry Mead, in his first game of the season for Effingham, and Cameron Walters (27), steadied the Ships and started to take the game away from the bowlers. Despite hitting many fine drives straight to the fielders, Harry completed a fine 50 including 5 boundaries, before holing out next ball.

Contributions all the way down the order allowed Effingham to reach 237 for 9 and their bowlers were champing at the bit.

Alex Cooper (3-31) proceeded to dent Englefield’s dreams by clean bowling three of the top four with a fiery spell from the station end, ably supported by a miserly Joe Roberts from the lane end. The middle order rallied briefly with a brave innings (with runner) from Sarab after he had pulled a hamstring in the field. However, the spin ‘twins’ of Iqbal and Iqbal combined to tempt the batsmen to their downfall, helped in no small measure by a stunning one handed catch by Ben Couzens in the covers. Young Adam Iqbal finished with excellent figures of 4-28 in just over 8 overs.

With a run out by Alex Cooper and another catch to Ben Couzens, the innings folded and Effingham were able to celebrate a job well done. Next up is a visit to Hook and Southborough CC and another 20 points is essential.

Paul Stroud