In the absence of the Captain, at that time engaged in the delivery of his firstborn - Harry (on whose birth we congratulate him & Mrs Hewitt), the MWCC was led by Matthew Lewis for our second visit to Beddington this season.
The home side elected to bat on a curious pitch which could occasionally shoot the ball up from just short of a length whilst also, on other occasions, skid through a genuine daisy cutter from the same length. Under these conditions the Mogs opened with a tidy spell from Briggs at the Pavillion end whose figures of 21-2 off 9 overs represented the tightest spell of the afternoon. Belying his age the Chairman, moving with the swiftness of a Cheetah across the African veldt, took an excellent catch behind square to give Briggs his second wicket.
At the other end Tharp was getting plenty of swing and his 3 wickets for 61 in 2 spells were just rewards for his efforts. The Mogs made reasonable progress and dismissed Beddington's openers without a worrying amount of runs being scored. In the field Ben Fairclough, making his debut appearance for the club this year was particularly vociferous and chastised the poor fielding. Patrolling the extra cover boundary he managed to throw two balls over the rope himself turning two runs into eight which caused a modicum of righteous amusement amongst his colleagues. However, an opportunity to redeem himself presented itself with a skier which he ran in 30 yards to collect with great aplomb.
Beddington began to add runs as their Pakistan professional (who your correspondent discovered over a can of Lucozade with the said player afterwards had faced Shoaib Akhtar in his debut first class game) punished the bowling. Despite the introduction of Joe Lewis and the launching of some 3" mortar shells by Pete Martin the chasing in the field did not diminish. The Captain, showing remarkable restraint in these trying circumstances, brought himself on to slow the run rate and took 1 for 40 off 9 overs. Only a rush of blood by their professional to a shorter one from Tharpy which drifted through the gap and resulted in his stumping ended the Beddington runfest at 214-6.
The Captain rotated the batting and the Little Master was accompanied by Parker to open the Mogs' response. Both openers were dropped in the slips off the sharpish balls being delivered from the Beddington end but they had put on 20 before a straight one skidded under Parker's bat and sent him on his way. Fairclough came to the wicket and made a good 43, which with Furner's steady 42 accounted for 60% of the Mogs' runs. In what turned out to be a poor batting display by the conquerors of East Moseley and Horsham there were 4 ducks as the visitors were deceived by the low bounce and only David Martin also made it into double figures. The Mogs retired to the bar all out for 144 to imbibe some hop based comestibles with their hosts. Fortunately the day ended on a cheering note with the Chairman's decision to host drinks before the next game and there was much rejoicing despite the lamentable outcome of the match.
Report by William Parker
MWCC Stats