Sunday 25th August 2002 vs Ploughmans C.C.
 
Harris the Hero as Gurney’s Boys do the Biz
 
Ploughmans C.C. 116
Washington C.C. 117-6
 
Anyone who plays cricket knows the trials of getting out a decent team on the August Bank Holiday weekend. Washington drew on the Saturday and Sunday squads to field a quality eleven; their visitors on Sunday, Ploughman’s, had to make do with 10. But what a game this was. It ended in victory for the Wash by the apparently decisive margin of four wickets, but it was a lot closer in reality as the Ploughmen battled to the last.

Wash skipper, Justin Gurney began proceedings by winning the toss and inviting the visitors to bat. His bowlers quickly turned this into an excellent decision: after a dozen overs of play on a lively wicket, the Ploughmen were reeling on 15-4, Mark Whittet (3-16) again the destroyer in chief.

This soon became 25-5, and with half the opposition re- hutched so soon, Gurney’s troops may have entertained fantasies about an early return to Washington HQ: it wasn’t to be. Khan (25) and Dyl Davies (38) knuckled down, survived a hostile spell from Richard Minion (1-12), and gradually rebuilt the Ploughman’s innings.

By the time Eric Stoughton (1-26) made the next breakthrough, the visitors had 68 on the board. And though wickets then began to fall again, Gurney picking up 3 for 29, a bright innings of 15 from Gillman took Ploughman’s over the 100-mark and set Washington a total which was always going to be testing on such an unpredictable surface.

In the event, Wash got off to a flyer: Alex Quinn, debuting for the Sundays, thrashed the bowling to all corners of the ground in making an imperious 33, and with Brad Hitchcock (9), took the total to 46 before Ploughman’s fought back again. Wash contrived to losefive wickets in quick succession, including that of Quinn, as they slumped from 46-1 to 68-6.

With Matthew Ridgeway (2-37) still getting the ball to lift disconcertingly and the hostile Gillman (2-35) waiting in the wings, it was suddenly ‘game on’.

Into this crisis stepped Tony Harris. An opener by training, he calmly and methodically faced down both Ridgeway and the perils of the pitch to produce the innings that secured victory for his side.

After a cautious start, he began to open his shoulders and struck some stunning blows down the ground. With Mark Whittet (17 not) at the other end in equally obdurate mood, Washington edged ever closer to their target: it was a fitting climax that the runs should come from Harris, though, who ended with an unbeaten 21.

The 49-run stand for Washington’s seventh-wicket was the highest of the match – an indication of how well Harris and Whittet played.

Did a four-wicket margin flatter Wash? Skipper Gurney wasn’t prepared to be drawn: ‘there was enough in the game to keep them interested, enough to keep us interested, and it all ended with the result the right way up! What more do you need to know?’

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