Ottershaw & Hamm MoorOttershaw & Hamm Moor vs Frimley Green Cricket ClubFGCC

The 2017 season has had its fair share of nail-biters already, and once again this was the case as FGCC visited Ottershaw on a cloudy and muggy midsummer's afternoon.

Winning the toss and electing to bowl, opening bowlers Kanavel and Tim produced miserly spells, with OHMCC openers Mumford and Hussain unable to get anything away. Once Kanavel had Houston caught well by Ajay at mid-off Mumford and Cooper picked up the pace, the latter taking a liking to anything coming fast onto the bat and hitting 4s for fun on his was to a quickfire 33. However it was an untried second string for FGCC that made in-roads - Ajay taking a wicket with his 3rd ever ball for FGCC in bowling OHMCC captain and blocker extraordinaire Steve Clarke for 22, and Sashi removing the dangerous Mumford for 38 when he tried one-too-many times to pull the bowling to the square leg boundary. Jim came on and carried on his 2017 wicket taking form by spinning one just enough to knock over Kyriacos' off-stump, and combining with Anu (who took his first two FGCC catches in this game) to remove Ilyas before having Emery LBW off the next ball. With death-bowling Tim returning to take 2 in 2 balls at the end of the innings (just as he'd done against Binfield earlier in the season) Ottershaw closed on 171 all out.

With time ticking by Anu was in no mood to hang around in reply, knocking 26 off 30 balls before he was bowled. This triggered a top-order collapse, with the score slumping from 36-1 to 44-5 in quick time before Ants and Tim came in to steady the ship. A combination of shrewd defense and some exquisite front-foot play by Tim saw the experienced duo muster a 60-run partnership before Ants fell for a well-made 30. With light fading and Tim falling trying to push the score on FGCC had an unlikely victory in their sights with 39 needed off the last 5 overs. Ajay and Sashi tried hard to reach this, but with opening bowler Ilyas coming back the target slowly slipped out of reach. With Ajay falling with only 2 balls left before time ran out, and under ever-darkening skies, Cap'n Jim needed 2 sixes to win but alas was unable to deliver the goods, meaning the match ended in a draw - on paper a fair result.