Thankfully another sunny afternoon met the Mogador Wanderers at Leatherhead CC, right next door to the refurbished Leatherhead Leisure Centre, from with JD emerged 15 minutes before kick-off - an ill-conceived parking location with the high parking costs of Mole Valley. In fact there were a few other Mogs that were finding the actual cricket ground a little difficult to find. May be no surprise as we did have 3 (!) debutant Mog players making up the XI on this day (Ed: selection continues to be a little challenging).
Many thanks indeed to Simon Owen (Reigate Priory 1st XI hockey coach), Peter Hames (Hipster South Nutfield loon) and Ahson Bukhari (Reigate Priory 3rd XI opening bat - picked up by Dairy during a familiar Saturday afternoon's drinking at Reigate Priory cricket club).
Well, ironically due to the hectic nature of last minute 'ringers' been picked up on Saturday night...Charlie Lee had inadvertently gathered 12 Mogs for the game! Up stepped honourable, stalwart Andy Tharp to umpire the fixture...Marvellous effort sir.
So with Eggson standing in as umpire, it was left to Charlie to take the reins and with Leatherhead Captain Tony, strode to the wicket to embark on the pressure toss...lots of Mogs new and old expecting. Tails called, the win was confirmed and batting was selected...job done.
So our late 'ringer' Ahson Bukhari was given the opportunity to open up the batting with Furner. It had been soon calculated that 'Ash' was no complete stranger to the Mogs, as he was the main component of a humdinger of a match against Merstham last year in a tied game, he had plundered 70 runs against us. So there was great anticipation as he now had to get to grips with the unique experience of opening the batting with Peter Furner. The track and outfield looked one for batting.
Well, Ash and Furns comfortably cruised along, taking the score well past 50, with Ash reaching his own half century with some glorious front and back foot shots. Furns was also looking well set, if not scoring at a slightly slower rate. Unfortunately though on 46, Furns was run out as a little confusion struck. This brought a much welcomed back Pete Riddy to the crease. Peter No.2 supported Ash as he continued to score the majority of runs, and it wasn't long until, for a second year in a row, the Mogador faithful were able to witness a century being scored at Leatherhead cricket club (J Tombs 106no). Ash was looking in fantastic form and it may have appeared the Mogs had found a real superstar (how many game was he available for?!). Peter No2 Riddy was struggling a little with his timing and unfortunately it was to be his un-doing, after a large opening stand which left Riddy waiting to come in, the pad-rash was worse than first thought, and after a decent delivery from the LCC young leggie was well stumped. In at 4 came Peter No3 Hames (another excellent piece of late night recruitment). He started very solidly and with Ash still going at the other end was playing the supporting role, rotating the strike and building a good partnership. With Charlie studying the clock and the scoreboard, and the knowledge it was a batting friendly track, was struggling to gauge the declaration. A final discussion with Peter Riddy concerning the position of the sun, the current time in China versus the proposed time we were due to start, eat and finish tea, divided by the number of spanners in a Sidchrome 12 piece combination toolset, led to the "Final over call be made". This sparked everything into gear...Ash moved from 149 to his 150 and with it the conclusion of a magnificent innings; and Peter Hames set about finishing strongly and launching a monstrous six over long on and on to the bonnet of JD's new Jaguar..!
The Mogs declared at 16.13 at 250 for only 2 wickets....super effort.
Tea was consumed, a great selection of fluffy rolls, childhood crisps and potato based snacks, and a wonderful Jamaica cake ("no, it was already provided").
MWCC Stats