Effingham claim first win in ten

Sat.26^th May 2018
Fuller’s Brewery Surrey County League – 1st Division
Effingham 1st XI .v. Ripley 1st XI

Ripley chose to bat first and made a poor start, losing both their openers with only nine runs on the board, the two wickets being shared between Dom Brown and Alex Cooper. These two bowlers continued to work their way through the visitor’s batting order and with the score on 17-5, Effingham were looking very confident of picking up their first win of the season. A stand of 46 for the 6^th wicket helped to move the scoreboard along, but the last five wickets went very quickly and only three runs were added. All five Effingham bowlers were among the wickets – Dom Brown finished with 3-7, Alex Cooper 2-13, Adam Burlison 2-19, Jake White 1- 10 and Tom Cobb grabbed the last two wickets with 2-2 in the final five ball over!

Effingham set about their target of 67 with the inevitable amount of care and everything was looking under control when the first wicket fell at 19; the next three partnerships contributed just 2 runs each and with the score on 25-4, even more care and concentration was needed. At 39-5, the winning total still seemed a long way away and things didn’t improve much with 7 down for 52. However, captain Adam Burlison, with 15 not out and Alex Cooper, took Effingham to victory by 3 wickets and a hard earned 20 points.