Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club

Crows missed out on a huge opportunity to leapfrog Mortimer in their hunt for the Division 2 title, falling to a 56 run defeat away at The Fairground.

Winning the toss and electing to bowl first on a pitch which looked flat but spongy in places, Ross Chalmers ripped through the Mortimer top order, ably assisted by Jon Cole, as Mortimer subsided to 16 for 6. Crows were snaffling everything that chance their way, with Rich Barron and Julian O'Loughlin holding on to particularly fine catches. That Crazy Catch warm up paid dividends!

Some brave and bold batting from the home side's lower order soon dug them out of trouble. Indeed, it seemed that playing positively and hitting out was the order of the day on an unpredictable pitch. The bounce in particular gave rise to several injuries to both sides' batsmen.

Chalmers gleefully earned his Baggy Green with a superb 6-fer (the last of which courtesy of a sharp catch from Fluffer in the gully, much to everyone's surprise). Julian also weighed in with a wicket to end the brave innings of the Mortimer skipper, who had been hit on the same finger three times! Eventually, Crows managed to bowl out Mortimer for 145 with skipper Pete Northall, standing in as wicket-keeper, effecting a stumping off the bowling of Rich Barron.

Unfortunately for Crows, the Red Barron wasn't able to continue his recent record-breaking batting form, becoming one of the five players in Crow's batting line up to record a duck. Only skipper Northall was able to take the game to Mortimer's excellent bowlers, resolutely supported by Sidders and Kev. However, when he departed with about eighty still needed, Crows knew that the game was probably up. Decent lower-order batting from Kev, Fluffer and John Cole couldn't prevent the defeat.