Ripley vs Frimley Green Cricket Club - Sunday 18th August 2019, 14:00

Fresh off the back of a win against Bracknell FGCC came to the other side of Woking looking for their first victory against Ripley on this, their 3rd attempt. Once again arriving to changeable weather (something of a regular fixture of games between the two sides) Jim called the toss right and inserted Ripley on a damp track with a spongy outfield. FGCC however couldn't take advantage of the early conditions, as Irvine and Zapp combined with some fine placement and steers through third man to rack up a solid opening stand of 92, broken on the cusp of drinks in this 35-over-per-side match when Jim got Irvine to nick to Anthony at slip. With Zapp getting to 50 FGCC were staring down the battle of a mountain to climb, but whatever was in the orange squash must have worked because after the resumption Kaarthav and especially Pranay made massive in-roads into the Ripley line-up, the latter in particular starting with 14 dots. This pressure told, as first Kaarthav (who gave stand-in keeper Lloyd his first snag behind the stumps) and then Pranay - bowling wicket-to-wicket and proving extremely difficult for the Ripley batsmen to get away - started taking wickets for fun. With Sheshi taking the last scalp after a fine piece of fielding by Martin ran out Sutherland, Ripley folded from 92-0 to 169 all out - a target FGCC felt attainable with the pitch starting to dry... ...although this wasn't the case when a first-baller for Anu and 2nd over dismissal of Lloyd saw FGCC reach 8-2 by the end of the 2nd over. Enter Pavan - fresh off last week's 50 - to stop the rot, and with Anthony to attempt to rebuild. This both batsmen did admirably, Anthony's running between the wickets being good in particular. Despite being dropped on 33, Pavan brought up his 2nd 50 in as many matches, and together with Anthony racked up 83 for the 3rd wicket before Anthony's running got the better of him and saw a mix up meaning he had to walk. Once Ajay and then Pavan (for a run-a-ball 68) fell however, everything went to pieces: Ripley brought on bowlers Gibley and Zapp, both of whom bowled superbly to sweep away the tail, between them taking 6 wickets for 10 runs before Pranay ran out his bowling com padre Kaarthav to give Ripley their 3rd successive victory.