Carlshalton 16Jul06

Following the early withdrawal of old foe Pyestock CC from the scheduled fixture Kings managed to secure a home and away fixture arrangement with Carshalton Athletic CC.

The visitors made their first visit to Kempton on a warm sunny afternoon played on a good pitch with a fast outfield. Kings, with a strong side, won the toss and elected to bat first in a 40 over a side match.

Following the success of the Perry / Young opening partnership earlier in the season the decision was made to go with this line up again, so Gordon Young opened with Dave Perry, with Joel Miah moving to number 3. The start of the innings was quite tough as both openers got to grips with some good impressive bowling from Gates and Satchell. However the batsmen soon started to make headway and the conditions soon showed that anything that beat the field would race to the boundary. Perry was soon the dominant partner as he settled into the form he had shown in recent weeks with a plethora of boundaries. After a slow start Young also began to get going and he was particularly strong on both sides of the wicket with anything that was pitched short. Perry continued to be strong on the drive down the ground and was savage on anything bowled with any width.

In the heat the bowlers soon started to tire and the batsmen began to find the going a little easier as they continued to take runs off the second change bowlers. The fifty, then the 100 partnership were posted with little alarm as the batsmen raced each other toward their respective fifties. Both batsmen were dead level at 47 each but it was Perry who reached the landmark first with another well executed boundary, however his partner was not far behind in securing his own 50. After this Perry really started to accelerate and he showed off his full array of shots in continuing to pepper the boundary - whilst mixing them with well timed singles and some hard running, on more than one occasion the two ran all run fours. The 150 partnership was raised by a superb pull shot by Young and there seemed no respite from the onslaught for the Athletics' bowlers. However the breakthrough finally came when Perry gave himself some room and was bowled by Clucas for a superb 81 (179-1). If Athletic thought a new batsmen would give them respite then they were to be misguided as Miah immediate picked up the tempo of the game with some superb on drives and leg glances. Young continued his march toward three figures with boundaries interspersed with well taken singles and he duly reached his first century for Kings.

It was an excellent innings mixing all out attack with resolute defence and skilful running, however in the heat of the day it took it toll and when Young offered a return catch on 102 it was a tired shot (260-2). The total was now closing in on Kings record score of 273 and Miah in search of this, and his own quick fire fifty, started to attack every ball with relish, he duly passed his fifty but a fine stop in the final over prevented the four needed to pass the highest score. At the end of the 40th over Kings has amassed an excellent 271-2.

It was not an impossible task to chase down such a large total but Athletic needed a good start if they were to maintain 6.8 runs an over to win. Unfortunately for them Simon Pipe made an early breakthrough when Gates was caught by Gordon Young and then Miah removed the other opener Goldfinch. There then followed a reasonable partnership between Foster and Curtis but the visitors were always behind the run rate and when Melligan was introduced in place of Miah, Foster could only chase a wide ball into the hands of Dave Perry behind the stumps. The next wicket to go was that of Gates, who fell to the 'three card trick' from Melligan - on a docile pitch Melligan delivered a good bouncer, followed by slower ball, then the fast Yorker! It was a fine piece of bowling from this promising Kings player. This brought the other Foster to join Athletic Skipper Curtis who then started to counter attack.

Showing great ability the Skipper seemed to be able to hit the ball wherever he wanted despite players lurking on the boundaries for a catch. When the legside boundary was loaded, he would hit inside out - six over extra cover being a quite remarkable shot - but once all the fielders were pushed back onto the boundaries both side of the wicket his attempt to break the shackles was to dance down the track. Yet this proved his downfall as Perry stumped him by some distance to give the persevering Norman a deserved wicket. The other Foster also fell to Norman, giving a return catch and Jones fell to Tighe before Kings gave a rare bowl to Mackenzie and Miah. With the result already determined the game drifted until the final ball of the innings when Tighe picked up the wicket of Clucas to secure an impressive victory for the home side. The game was lit up by the excellent batting and half centuries from Perry and Miah, but the highlight was clearly the maiden Kings century from Gordon Young.