Reports 22/05/10

Normandy captain Michael Scott won the toss and chose to bat on a swelteringly hot day at Lower Ground. However, the Normandy innings suffered a setback in the first over when James Clutterbuck was caught after hitting a short ball from Steve Clark straight up in the air. This bought Mehoob Elahi to the crease who along with opener James Regan, went about playing some very aggressive shots before both falling victim to short balls from Steve Clark. Clark finished with figures of 3-40 and continued his impressive start to this season with the ball.

Malinda Thotiwilage then went about scoring patiently and punishing any deliveries with width on his way to 82 from 91 deliveries. Normandy’s middle and lower order supported him ably and allowed their team to finish on 217-9 from their 50 overs.

The Cheam reply was led by opening batsman David Houpapa who faced 97 balls for his score of 77 before he was caught on the mid-wicket boundary off the bowling of Chris Miles with the score at 139-3. Miller then followed after seeing his patient innings of 58 off 88 balls ended when he was also caught off the bowling of Chris Miles, this time at long on. At this stage, Cheam required 56 runs to win with six wickets in hand.

The loss of four more wickets for 18 runs as Cheam’s middle and lower order struggled to come to terms with the slow wicket left Cheam reeling at 180-8 and needing another 38 runs to win. Useful contributions from Leigh Harrison and Tim Scott pushed Cheam’s score up to 210. But it was not enough as Cheam were all out when Scott was stumped with three balls remaining and the total seven runs short of Normandy’s.

After the game, Cheam captain Danny Miller said, “I thought we played good cricket for the majority of the game”. Looking ahead he said, “I hope this will serve as a wake-up call for us as we have some tough fixtures coming up”.