Kings
welcomed Long Ditton to Kempton for the return fixture from the
week 
before.
With heavy rain having fallen the day before the usual hard dry
Kempton wicket was still a little damp. Having won the toss Long
Ditton decided to bat first, which did not disappoint Kings as
they had contemplated batting anyway. From the previous weeks
game Kings had lost Bygrave, Mears, Dave Miah and Jamie Melligan
but were able to bring in prolific opener Dave Miller, leading
wicket taker Richard Sones, Simon Pipe and Chris Barnes.
With the wicket playing slow Miller and Joel Miah had to be watchful
especially 
against
the impressive Long Ditton Skipper Alderman. A measure of the
tightness of Long Ditton's bowling was demonstrated by only 12
runs coming off the first 8 overs. However from this point the
scoring rate started to rise as the batsmen started to come to
terms with the pitch. Miah, with some well timed on drives and
Miller working the balls into the gaps pushed the score onto 45
by the 15th over. Somewhat surprisingly Adlerman was replaced
by Sweeney and this signalled the opportunity for the 
batsmen
to push on more. Horgan was despatched for successive boundaries
that brought on the end of his spell and was replaced by Toms,
who started with a maiden. However Miller then hit the same bowler
for three successive boundaries and Miah also joined in as the
over went for 17. This trend continued when Bond was introduced,
starting with a maiden and then conceding 12 in his second, however
he did claim the first breakthrough when he had Miah caught by
Alderman for an impressive 42 (91-1).
How pleased Long Ditton were about this breakthrough is unclear
as it signalled the arrival of Danny Perroo to the crease. The
free scoring batsman who had 
accelerated
Kings to victory the week before was close to be lbw off his second
ball, just an inside edge saving him. Miller then brought up his
fifty, off 74 balls, with this seventh boundary. This seemed to
signal a determined effort from both batsmen to up the rate to
get Kings close to the par score at Kempton. Despite having a
deep square leg posted from the moment he arrived at the crease,
Perroo joined the party despatching Goldsmith for a maximum over
the fielders head. It was Goldsmith that suffered most at the
hands of the batsmen - his three overs costing 36 runs! To their
credit Long Ditton stuck to their task and Bond, S. Horgan and
Alderman did their best to rein in the batsmen's scoring.
Miller was on full song now and scored 20 off five balls at one
stage. However when Perroo tried once again to clear the boundary
he was caught by Toms right 
on
the line to give Alderman a well deserved wicket. (174-2). With
Miller now closing in on his second century of the season Kings
batted on, with Barnes now joining Miller. Barnes worked for his
partner and gave the strike to Miller where possible. Miller was
able to comfortably make the runs he needed to reach three 
figures
and his sixth century for Kings overall. Kings' skipper Rob Young
then decided to give Miller the chance to beat his own personal
best and maybe even the Kings record score. However when a heavy
rain shower started to fall and tea rapidly approaching the declaration
came with the score at 204-2, Miller had carried his bat for a
superb 109 off 127 balls.
The tea interval was most entertaining as both teams watched England
pasting the Aussies around Old Trafford. The Long Ditton batsmen
were faced with the opening bowlers of Pipe and Sones. Pipe delivered
up a testing first over against Young who was fortunate to get
an underedge that just evaded keeper and slips. Meanwhile Sones
was examining Lamberts technique. The first breakthrough came
when Lambert pushed hard at Sones and the resulting edge was well
taken by Miller in the gulley (4-1). Young was trying to use Pipe's
pace and he worked the ball behind square quite well but he was
fortunate to survive when his namesake Gordon Young just failed
to hold onto a square cut to point. Meanwhile young Sweeney was
playing with immaculate defence against Sones.
The
second wicket fell in spectacular fashion, Pipe dropped short
and Young pulled him hard to square leg where Mackenzie seemed
to have no chance of taking the catch, but the lanky South Africa
leapt and with extreme coolness took a superb one handed catch
(16-1). With both Sweeney's at the crease a mix up in calling
nearly resulted in a run out. However Kings keeper Smith had spotted
a flaw in the technique of P.Sweeney and sensed they could get
him stumped off Sones, the plan nearly worked the first time,
but second time round Smith made no mistake to claim his man (22-3).
Pipe then got his first chance to bowl at the younger Sweeney
and the first ball saw the batsmen edge to Sones at gulley (24-4).
Chris Barnes then took over from Sones, and Miah replaced Pipe
and it was Miah who struck next when he bowled Mclreedy off stump
(30-5).
This brought in Alderman in to join the tight resistance of Bond.
With Barnes getting good movement both ways Kings were hopeful
of another breakthrough but the batsmen were providing stubborn
resistance. When the breakthrough came there was some debate as
to whether the batsman was out of not. Alderman played at a ball
outside of off stump, there was certainly a noise of ball on bat
but it was not clear if the ball had been played down into the
ground before going through to Smith. However the bowlers appeal
brought a decision from the umpire in the positive to give Barnes
a deserved wicket (37-6). With Bond and Goldsmith keeping out
everything thrown at them and the overs rapidly running out Kings
brought Gordon Young and Richard Mackenzie into the attack. Young
struck early to dismiss Goldsmith (43-7) but after that Bond dominated
mixing solid defence with attack. Once Kings got Bond off strike
they were able to attack Toms and Smith stumped him off Mackenzie
(61-8) to give Kings hope of taking the final two wickets. However
Bond still held firm and it was left to J. Horgan to see out the
final over for which Sones was brought back. But it was not to
be and the determined rear guard action by Long Ditton's batsmen
had claimed their reward of a hard fought draw.
Kings had been frustrated by a dogged Long Ditton side who's young
team had battled hard all afternoon, with deserved credit. For
Kings, Dave Miller had made a superb century with good innings
also from Miah and Perroo, whilst all the bowlers came way with
good figures they did not have enough to quite break the back
of the Long Ditton's batting.
