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Arundel Castle Estates v Ashling

22nd July 2006

Arundel 172-8 dec, Ashling 135-4 (match drawn)

Sleep 4-20; Sleep 52, Loubser 49

Having looked forward for four years for the opportunity to play on the castle ground, there was gloom in the air as Ashling arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm. The groundsman was fortunately as keen to play as us, and after an hour's delay the covers came off (covers, imagine!!)

Ashling put Arundel into bat reasoning that with a fairly tame bowling attack we would be better off trying to contain them and chase a total with our strong batting line-up.
For a while the plan worked.After Brown and Budd got Arundel off to a steady start, wickets tumbled regularly and the scoring rate was slow. Sleep was the pick of the bowlers (9-1-20-4) and was ably supported by Stone (7-1-32-2), Mason, and Bush with a cameo from Colley. The plot started to unravel when number eight Ashworth came to the crease. Within 45 minutes he had scored 54 runs in a productive partnership with Farquhar and then Bullen. 172 for 8 looked a competitive total when at one time 120 looked a tall order.
Simmonds (3) and Crundwell (3) departed fairly quickly, but Matt Sleep and Nic Loubser got their heads down and started making inroads into the required total. With 20 overs left seven an over was required, and was being achieved. When Matt Sleep (54) sent a return catch to bowler Farquhar and shortly afterwards Nic Loubser was bowled for 49 it was clear at this point that the win was beyond us, although this fourth wicket stand had batted defeat out of the equation. Captain Paul Colley (7 n.o.) and Craig Mason (14 n.o.) saw off the remaining overs for an honourable draw.