Match Report by Ian Walter

Staines & Laleham 4ths v Ley Hill 3rds on Saturday 5 May 

Ley Hill’s 3^rd XI kicked off its season with a friendly at Staines & Laleham on 5 May. After months of intensive fitness training and net practice, the lads were ready for action after overcoming the disappointment of the late cancellation of their pre-season tour in Luton. 

After experimenting with various detours from all exits of the notorious A30 Crooked Billet roundabout (must get a new map!) our four cars eventually met up with each other only a creditable fifteen minutes late. Ominously, the opposition were all changed and practising their fielding. 

In the event Hill fielded a remarkably young side with only Terry Rothwell and Ian Peploe in the ‘nearer 60 than 50’ category and skipper Ian Walter the only other 50+ member of the side. With everyone else comfortably below 30, including 4 teenagers and young Stephen Carr at 12. In the absence of Messrs Rainey, Kaye, Mortimer, McCarthy and Peterson the side’s average age was 47 years younger than when it last turned out.  

The Staines side meanwhile had seemed to go in the opposite direction and had more grey and balding pates than most. They also included their own septagenarian, Derek Evans, who was disappointed not to see Jim Rainey (has he retired or is it just a rumour??) in this one.   

After winning the toss, largely in anticipation of enjoying from the boundary the sunshine forecast from mid-afternoon, Staines were inserted and opening bowlers Steve Bell and newcomer Leigh Dale soon had them in trouble on a ‘Bellingdon type’ bowler friendly wicket. Pressure was maintained, particularly from young Stuart Crichton who bowled with such hostility that Staines’ best batsman was soon calling for a helmet. In six very tidy overs (spread through the innings of course in accordance with ECB guidelines) remarkably Stuart was unable to claim a wicket. A sharp slip chance to Ian Peploe resulted in a badly bruised spinning finger and new ‘keeper Sam Martin and slips Ian and Terry retreating a further ten yards behind the wicket. 

Young Gregory Asquith did claim his first ‘senior’ wicket in another very tidy spell but the main beneficiary of Stuart’s hostility was probably Terry Rothwell, who took an incredible 5 for 15 in 5 overs in which he hit the stumps three times. The new tablets are definitely working and fortunately he was not selected for a random drugs test after the game. Terry starts his next game on a hat trick! As he’s not available next week it could be the longest hat trick on record. 

So Staines folded to 129 all out with four of their overs remaining. The other wickets were shared between Bell, Dale, Asquith and Peploe and the lads went off to enjoy a very fine tea in high spirits, unable to remember when we had last dismissed a team in the allotted time. A contributory factor had undoubtedly been that only one wicket required somebody to hang on to a catch, which fortunately went to the reliable Steve Bell. 

Harvey Mash scored his customary 10 opening the innings with Leigh, and young Stephen coped very well with the pressure of promotion to number 3 as skipper Walter was anxious as ever to give everyone an opportunity and his suspected arthritis is his right hand was playing up. Having dropped Rothwell down the order for bowling too well, next up was Peter Crichton who scored 18, amazingly interspersed with at least three defensive shots as he and Leigh chased the target in good time. Both then fell but without further alarm Sam Martin (12 not out) and Steve Bell (42 not out) saw Hill home in some style with 14 overs to spare, extras having contributed to the score significantly. 

So a winning start! Staines were left licking their wounds ahead of their own league campaign while for Hill, a sound all round performance with some very encouraging debuts from Leigh and Sam (don’t tell the seconds) and great contributions from the four juniors (Gregory, Stephen, Peter and Stuart) who were good enough at relatively short notice (thank you parents) to trek over to Staines.