Washington Cricket Club - 40th Anniversary Year

As was forecast we had some glorious weather for cricket over the weekend. The Wash produced an emphatic win in the sunshine against Putney CC at our home ground on Sunday. 

Having lost the toss Putney CC were sent into bat & were subsequently bowled out in 17 overs with only 52 runs on the board. Mitchell and Hill opened on the hard middle pitch and had the ball cutting both ways giving the batsman nothing.  Mitchell soon had off-pin cartwheeling and followed up quickly with a second cleaned bowled.  Hill then produced some unplayable balls of his own twice cutting the ball back in to knock them over. 

Wilson put up a subborn defence and looked very solid but then flicked one straight to Marshy at Square Leg and took off and Marshy made no mistake in getting the ball quickly to Cooky who took them off.  Andrew Walsh came on and kept the pressure on with very tight bowling inducing some wild swings before getting one caught by Cruickshank at mid-on followed by a C&B of his own to finish with 2 for 4 of 5 overs (3 maidens).  Shyam and Russ introduced some spin to the attach and continued to keep things tight and thus both rewarded with stumpings following both bats trying to push teh issue and some smart work behind teh pegs by Cooky again.  Marshy was introduced and only took two balls to get the last wicket caught by behind capping off an excellent day with the gloves by Cook.  With two other quality keepers in the field on the day and a couple at home, the Wash's wicketkeeping stocks have rarely been stronger.

While it may have looked to be a likely short day, the Wash started shakily with Harper (0) bowled and Clark (4) unfortunately caught with a leading edge and the Wash nervous at 2 for 5 (or 5-2 for you purists).  However Shyam (31) and debutant Ritchie Robinson (10) bought it home with Shyam displaying some typically aggressive and well timed shots (although lucky with a couple of French cuts which pretty much summed up their luck on the day).

Captain Hill noted "A pity to have it cut short as it was perfect conditions for a game but once we got on top we didn't let them back into it".  Putney Skipper Wilson noted wryly that "One of the boys sent around aroudn a photo of ducks on a lake this morning so I blame him as he had 4 of them"

A special day was capped off later at the Wash where 1985 debutant Taran (Tags)(The Dark Destroyer) Persaud was presented with life membership recognising his long association with and many contributions to the Wash.  A congratulatory note was read from Dave Walker and Antonia the Landlady was also on hand to congratulate Tags and buy the boys a round.

Great effort by everyone on teh day with tight bowling, almost chanceless fielding and a good strong batting finish.  Many thanks to Tobe, Crooky and Elaine for the support from the sidelines.

Man of the match - Shared between James Cook for the excellent glove work and Andrew Walsh for the great bowling performance

Packing the kit - Sam Clark for leaving soon after the game to spend time with his family instead of sitting in the sun and drinking beer...what can I say, we are a pub team!