The Mog Warriors executed a first class victory against a good Pilgrims XI on another sun drenched Sunday behind The Red Lion, Betchworth. Captain Cooper won the toss and to his team mates delight, elected to bat first on a parched wicket. Turner & Furner opened the batting and found the going quite hard work against an opening attack featuring Surrey U15 bowler Will Hodgson, who bowled with real venom and hit the gloves regularly & Turners helmet once. Rumours that "Tina" complained that "it's not fair" have not been substantiated. Whilst the bowling was good, any shots that were timed were almost certainly rewarded with a boundary and the scoreboard saw that we were rattling along at about 6 an over with Turner in imperious form. Furns hit some nice shots before falling LBW with the score on around 100 before Fish joined Turns at the crease, putting on a further 30 or so. Fish went for 17 and with Turner blowing harder than a ...... (please fill in at your leisure), he reached a fine 100. Hewitt put the pedal to the metal and hit five 6s despite this only decreasing the number of overs we would face due to a large amount of time wasted ball finding. Coops called us in after 36 overs with an excellent declaration and we retired to the shade to eat sandwiches, coffee cake, scones and strawberries. Our declaration had given us 43 overs or so to get 10 Pilgrim wickets but Hodgson hit Joseph out of the attack before Barry Mankelow took our first wicket with a beauty via a smart catch by Brooker. Cooper took out Hodgson (54) via a smart catch at midwicket by Huge and with that catch the Mogs smelled blood. Brooker bowled the spell of the day with a marvellous 5 over spell of genuinely quick bowling that ripped out the middle order, Harry Hewitt removed Home captain Wood via a catch behind by Parker and Joseph came back on to take out the tail including one "Jaffa". After a small 10th wicket stand Coops brought on the filth and Benny Fairclough bowled a wide leg break that was poked to Huge at slip. Beers were taken in the Red Lion and it was a marvellous way to celebrate Will Parker reaching the tremendous milestone of 400 caps for the Mogs. Well played sir. We are only sorry you put your back out "celebrating"
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