HAMPTON HILL CRICKET CLUB

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28-29 August

28-29 August

2 Sep 2021

1st XI beat SinjunGrammarians by 95 runs

Hampton Hill went into Saturday knowing that a win would guarantee promotion. Standing in their way, old friends and sparring partners from the Brewery days, Sinjuns. History dictated drama, Saturday delivered. 

With a classic Hill v Sinjuns disagreement from the off, a delayed toss saw Hill put into bat. The skipper took on opening duties with Bennett, with the former falling victim to a …. hasty decision. This brought Tom “whatever he has decided to entitle himself for the day” Coates to the crease and he and Bennett started to build a promising partnership that got Hill to 51–1 before Coates yorked himself. 

Next in for the Hill the effervescent, ebullient Tom Hampton. A period of rebuilding took Hill to drinks. Hampton started to push the score along and fell for a fine 30, bringing J Wood to the party. A few lusty blows followed before a fine catch at long on.

Baverstock came to the crease and started to dismantle the Sinjuns attack, driving the ball to all parts with dismissive ease, scoring a fantastic 34. Two good Yorkers saw Baverstock and the quickest Coates depart.  This brought special K to the mix who had a spritely 14. 

Readers may wonder where is Bennet in all this? The answer compiling a sensational 72 complete with scorpion kick. His was the knock of the day as he anchored the Hill innings guiding it to a competitive total of 214. 

The Hill have been fantastic with the ball this season, but we’re put to the sword by the sinus openers. Robottom struck with an lbw. 

Fullicks found his ridge time and time again before finding the edge through to Baverstock. A sensational piece of bowling that brought a well-deserved wicket, or so thought the 11 Hill players, the fans, the non-striker, the stags enjoying their afternoon grass, that dodgy geezer with the special brew and our friends in the KFC. The only exception? the man with the power who said no. 

Hill lost the plot and were sloppy for the next 8 overs as Sinjuns slapped their way to 41 making the most of some at times wayward bowling. It was of course Hampton Hill’s own Darren Stevens, Rob Fullicks that broke the burgeoning partnership, finding enough of an edge for even the umpire to agree this time round. 

With Sinjuns well up with the run rate the skipper brought himself and sparked a collapse from Sinjuns that saw them falter from 76-3 to 119 all out. The skipper bowled a miserly spell of 9-1-13, including a fantastic catch by Wood, and as regular readers will know, he doesn’t drop those. After dismissing yet another left hander the self-proclaimed next Graeme Swann was in raptures. 

Robottom chipped in with another wicket before the elder Coates was brought on to mop up the tail. And so, it was with a moon ball stuck down the throat of safe hands Sheikh that Hill secured promotion.

With a team full of home-grown talent, the season has been one to remember and even the skipper was tempted to break the 0.3 beer rule. Roll on next week and the chance of going up as champions.

Player of the Match: Rich Bennett with a fine 72

2nd XI beat Merrow by 3 wickets

The Hill once again unanimously voted on a heads toss and wants again it was correct and Merrow were put in to bat.

After a solid start from Merrow the Hill bowlers got to work consistently taking wickets throughout the innings.

Jack Fullicks bowled consistently well despite a few no balls he was massively unfortunate to only walk away with the 4 wickets.

James Everett bowled metronomically bowling his 10 overs for just 23 runs and picked up a wicket building pressure throughout with dot balls.

This trend continued through the whole of the team with no bowler having an economy rate higher than 3.5 runs per over, once again showing what has been a major strength of the 2s all year.

Ian Exworth then continued his fine form with the ball picking up another 2 wickets bowling a perfect example of stump-to-stump bowling.

Jack then continued to bowl well searching for that 5th wicket however, nutty seed after nutty seed he was unfortunate not to pick up a well-deserved 5-fer.

Before openers Olly Fallows and Mike Murton came back on where the latter picked up two wickets to take him past 30 league wickets for the season.

Merrow ended on a very chaseable target of 128.

The Hill got off to a slow start with both opening bowlers bowling superb line and length not giving anything away to Adam and JC.

Adam played a loose shot trying to put the pressure on the openers and fell victim to the experienced Ken Mead.

JC however anchored the innings superbly as batsman came and went from a slow start to accelerate the innings.

Batsmen Jack and Jordan helped accelerate the innings with brisk 20s however wickets were continuing to fall.

Captain Porter and Ed Cinderey were out cheaply to build a little bit of panic from the Hill.

JC was then removed after making a fine 52 fighting through back pains to get the Hill close to winning.

Everett and Exworth were then in at the end on 16 and 1 respectively, a wide ball was what won the game for the Hill and sealed a well-deserved title for the 2nd XI.

Player of the Match: Jack Fullicks 4-26 and 21

3rd XI beat Sunbury by 7 wickets

On a day of intermittent cloud and occasional breeze Sunbury won the toss and elected to bat. This appeared to be an open and shut case of a decision as the Sunbury openers got off to a flier, before veteran seamer Taz prized a wicket thanks to a fine catch on the boundary from Ryan Exworth, who covered ground like Frankel knowing he was in his last race before being put out to stud. Whilst runs kept flowing for the home side, Hill took regular wickets, including Nigel Harman breaching a forward defence similar to his days of breaching Sharon in the mid 2000s. David Coates and Warren Carr bowled well in tandem, with Coates taking a well-deserved wicket in the last over of his spell, but it was at the conclusion of the innings where The Hill attack wrestled back control of the game. After an over of sheer frustration with several boundaries going through a vacant third man area, Ryan Exworth was not perturbed as he took three poles at the death. Ben Blackshire and Skipper Nally had wickets of their own, whilst Weeks snaffled three catches with the gloves to ultimately restrict Sunbury to 219/9 off their 45. A fine performance considering the fashion in which the home side were scoring fluently on a serious batting track.

After a fabulous spread put on by the home side, it was the turn of The Hill to chase. Things got off to a fine start, with Alex Bush and Paul Thornley taking the score to 56 before Alex was caught. Nigel and Warren made valuable contributions, but scoring was difficult and when Carr was dismissed, The Hill needed 78 at a rate approaching sevens. Thornley needed support, and as sure as night follows day, out walked our very own long brown haired, slightly too intelligent for their own good Hermione Granger, in the shape of Liam Weeks. Weeks and Thornley continued to chop away at the total, with Thornley scoring boundaries with ferocious flays to the point boundary and Weeks running quick twos in a fashion not becoming a man of such a frame. Lungs bled, shirts were soiled, but before long with five overs to go, the truly magical moment happened. A first league 100 for Paul Thornley, The Hill gallery erupting in a fashion words cannot do justice. After another quick couple resulting in Weeks taking out a Sunbury fielder in a fashion not too dissimilar to something you’d expect to see on 
Rugbydump.com, the equation was 7 off 12. A crisp on drive, a final, screaming-for-glycogen two, and an anti-climactic leg bye to finish sealed the deal with seven balls remaining. The Hill had done it. 

Player of the Match: Paul Thornley, I guess.

4th XI beat Weybridge by 107 runs

With few games remaining and the 4’s looking to make it 3 wins on the bounce, the skipper walked out to the middle and decided to strategically lose the toss so the team would be put in to bat. Success, 1-0 the Hill. 
Something happened that hasn’t happened in the 4XI for some time, and the opening duo dug in, for an opening partnership of 76, before Owens took the wrong club out the bag and chipped up to mid-on. This set a solid foundation for the rest of the team. However, after Farooq getting triggered on 49 by the skipper, some quick runs came as quickly as the wickets did, as the hill fell to 117/5. However, after playing himself in, Omar tucked in and started to tee off on the Weybridge bowing attack, easing his way to his half century. With no other big scores and some unfortunate dismissals, the Hill set Weybridge a target of 195. 

After the break, the hill went out extremely confident that they could defend the total and knock off the Weybridge batsmen for a small amount. And this was proven with the opening partnership of James Allen-Perry (5o,1m,5r,1w) and Dan Mackinney (6o,3m,9r,1w) seen off the opening batsmen for 9 runs between them. Archie Knight was bought in to the attack, needing no time to settle in, bowling a 3-wicket maiden in his first over. And just missing out on a hat-trick as the batsmen dug out a quality Yorker. The Hill had Weybridge 11-5 and the game looking like a forgone conclusion, a few of the Weybridge players had other ideas, digging in stubbornly, they increased the scoreboard slowly but surely. However, the wickets also came in such fashion, with Archie taking another and Jamie Hillier picking up a couple with some great bowling, it left it up to skipper Andrew Sykes and Farooq Bosan to finish the game off, with both missing by centimetres on multiple occasions, it was the latter getting the two needed wickets to seal victory for the hill, winning by 107 runs.

Player of the Match: Omar Saleemi for his 58 runs.

5th XI lost to Old Hamptonians by 3 wickets


Howard and the Earl started well with a 60+ opening partnership, well taken on by Arsh scoring 20 quick ones after HC was out.
The Earl went on to score 52 well-crafted runs and gave us a good total of 137 to defend. It could have been around 20 more but our young guns, whilst batting with good technique struggled to get the ball off the square (with OH bowling their openers at full tilt!).

Tommy Rance and Mae Bush opened the bowling and after 10 overs OH were 23-3. Great spell of tight and dangerous bowling removing their top 3 with Arsh also taking a couple of wickets. At drinks/18 overs we were in with a chance and with Alec barry bowling well and taking 2 good wickets (1 that pitched on leg and took off stump….the barry “mystery ball”).

Unfortunately this bought in their number 8 who smashed 44 from 32 balls to take the game away from us and reach the target with 5 overs to spare..

With an extra 20 or so it would have been touch and go.

Player of the Match: James Neville for a fine half-century with mentions for Tommy, Mae and Arsh.

Sunday Home XI lost to Riverside by 39 runs

A youthful Hill side with some sore heads from the night before, Riverside elected to bat first.

Ryan and Daniel set the tone early on bowling well and were both very unfortunate to come away from the day wicketless.

The pressure built from the opening pair meant that the platform was set for Adam Mackinney and Rob Fullicks to pick up wickets. Adam picked up figures of 4/35 off his 8 overs continuing the trend of drinking the night before makes him bowl better.

Nigel Harman also picked up a couple of wickets keeping it tight, Jamie Hillier also bowled well and deserved a wicket with the batsman snicking off and not walking on a Sunday although Jamie then get him later on for a score of 27-2.

Riverside managed to score 227 which was always going to be a tough ask for the Hill.

Adam fell in the second over snicking off to a sharp catch from first slip.

Rob batted well for 18 before chipping up to mid off, however Jake Wood continued where he left off all year and got to 28 which was a big landmark, 1000 runs this season a huge achievement so congratulations to Jake thoroughly deserved.

Andrew Sykes also batted superbly with a fine 53 from 50 deliveries, complimented with batting with Jack Fullicks who hit a ridiculous 6 over cover before a dubious LBW dismissal.

Jamie and Nigel hit 16 and 14 respectively to take the Hill close however falling to a 39-run defeat.

Player of the Match: Adam Mackinney 4-35

Sunday Away XI lost to Woking & Horsell by 159 runs

The Hill was well beaten in this new fixture at Woking & Horsell’s well-appointed and attractive ground.  We were made welcome, and the game was played in a good spirit.   The home side scored freely from the start and their total was built around a well struck 100 by K Rao.  Farooq Bosan and Richard Longley took the only wickets to fall with Richard taking an athletic caught and bowled; this was the Hill’s champagne moment. 

 After the break the Hill struggled against a good bowling unit backed by some excellent slip catching. Darren Jonasus hung around for 19 and Arsh Ahuja 21 and Taz 15 made some good strikes.

Player of the Match: Farooq Bosan 1-34 bowled well on a tough day for bowlers.