OLCC 1's thrill the Beer Festival with another win

Surrey Championship Division 3 1st XI
Oxted and Limpsfield CC 1st XI – 236 – 3 dec (50 overs)
Horsley and Send CC 1st XI – 109 all out (44.1 overs)

Oxted and Limpsfield CC win by 127 runs

Hottest weekend of the year so far for cricket week + Oxted and Limpsfield Beer Festival = A Saturday league game that no opposition wants to miss. Luckily for the players of bottom of the league Horsley and Send, this year they had the opportunity to play in front of the crowds!

The opposition won the toss and elected to bowl. Stuart Fletcher and Skipper Simon Jackson opened and took their time at the crease; watching the ball and playing it late. Sometimes people get out early in cricket; Beer Festival weekend is definitely not the time to do it!
The 50 run partnership came and the pair looked strong. Unfortunately for Fletcher, the partnership wasn’t to grow much further and he skewed one up to square leg for 38.
Nadeem Durrany joined Jackson at the crease. The two have completely different ways of playing but they complimented each other perfectly. While Jackson was timing the ball and knocking it around to bring up his half century, Durrany was playing his usual attacking game and smashing the ball to the boundary. He also hit one majestic maximum back over the bowlers head. When Durrany was out caught and bowled for 45, OLCC were on 156 for 2.
Next man in Was Andy Starling and he continued where Durrany had left off. Together, he and Jackson took the total towards the 200 mark, Sadly, Jackson was unable to covert to a century and fell for 82. Oxted six runs short of 200.
Man of the moment Ben Fullard was next to the crease and along with Starling, he looked to make the most of Horsley and Sends 4th and 5th change bowlers. With the score on 236 having just completed the 50th over, Jackson signalled to the batsmen to come back to the pavilion. Oxted declared and Starling had finished on a very good 39 not out with Fullard 18 not out.

Returning Lee Mcilwraith took the new ball with Ben Fullard and together they bowled well to restrict the opposition batsmen to the odd single. Fullard picked up the early wicket of Salim with Alex Pizzey taking yet another good catch at gully. While economical, they were unable to breakthrough so Simon Jackson started throwing the ball around.
Firstly Jackson brought himself into the attack and bowled a very good 3 over spell, 2 of which were maidens (0-4). Ned Lack was then given the ball and together with new spin twin Jay Mastin (1-20), they bamboozled the opposition picking up wickets at regular intervals.
Alex Pizzey was also involved in another great bit of fielding with a direct hit run out following a long chase to the boundary by Stuart Fletcher.
At 77-6 with the opposition looking to block out for the draw, Jackson threw the ball to Mcilwraith with the ultimatum. “I need a wicket, you have 2 overs”.
First ball, Mcilwraith steamed in and caught the edge of Matt Mole; Mike Wood happily taking the catch behind the stumps sparking joyous scenes. Last ball of this 2 over spell, he was also able to bounce Randy Gayle out, the catch being taken by Starling at short leg.
At 87-8, after Ross Powell (0-10) had been unable to get a breakthrough, Fullard and Lack returned to try and finish off the game . Fullard was able to get in the action by getting the very patient Rizwan Hussain to play a false shot which was caught by Powell at cover.

With only 6 overs left in the game, Lack (4-32) got one to pitch in line and straighten to the number 10 bat. The umpires arm went up and Oxted had won. The Beer Festival crowd acknowledged the performance of the OLCC players with rapturous applause.

This result means Oxted and Limpsfield remain top of division 3 (230 pts). They are now ahead of second place by over 2 games, and ahead of 3rd place by over 3 with 7 games to go.

Natterbox Man of the Match is split between Simon Jackson for his 82 and Ned Lack for his 4 wicket haul. Next week Oxted are away to 3rd place Old Wimbledonians. A win will almost guarantee promotion.