Sanderstead Away
What can only be described as a damp week, the R’s headed up the only hill in Surrey you won’t find a cyclist on for an away day at Sanderstead.
On a pitch which can only be described as very green with wet mud patches, this was 3rd XI cricket at its finest!
Calling incorrectly yet again, no words from Sanderstead skipper Chris Cary were needed, Ripley were batting. Having looked at previous scores at the venue, 150 would be a well above par score.
Sanderstead opened up with the youthful J Pettifor and D Cary, who took the short ball approach which despite Panting guiding the ball straight to midwicket and Gully survived twice and Ripley have reached 25/0, when first T Ottewill picked up Camm, driving straight to C Cary at Mid-off.
Panting and Audibert rallied somewhat, with solid accumulation taking the score to 58/1 before Audibert top edged a full toss off Harris’s Leggies to Square leg.
With Panting still scoring relatively freely and reached his 50, Searle started to do the same, and with Ripley well set at 89/2 with 12 overs left, Panting edged behind and walked, off the impressive Leggy Rajiv for a solid 59. 89/3.
Having been in similar situations in previous games, and kicked on usually Ripley managed to do something they hadn’t done yet and collapse.
Searle gloved one behind off T Ottewill for 17 and walked, Styles stumped, Irvine run out trying to run on a misfield, Khurran stumped also and the collapse was complete for now, Ripley had stumbled to 102/7.
Baily and Jarrett) attempted to rebuild and had managed to steady the ship to 117, still with 3 overs to go, a chance of 140 still on the cards, Jarrett got cleaned up by the impressive D Cary, Baily top edged off Pettifor and Thomas fell the same way off Sanderstead skipper.
Ripley were all out for 118. Not a terrible score on this pitch, but really should have gotten to 140.
With the pitch and outfield drying up, Sanderstead were going to have the best of the conditions

Tea, served at the main Sanderstead ground was decent.
Sanderstead’s reply started what can only be described as phrenetically, bit of tip and run from Snow and Sen. Snow had a life against Thomas, when Jarrett dropped a straight forward one at Mid-off. It didn’t cost too many as he hit a ball the next over off Thomas to Styles at Mid On, who took it comfortably. 5/1.
Sen and Rajiv looked to punish anything short and wide, which was sitting up nicely and had got to 20/1 until Thomas brought one back more than Sen expected to rattle some timbers. 20/2 and a decent start for the R’s.
Rajiv fell next with the score on 43, getting bowled round his legs off Jarrett, Keating followed almost straight away, LBW to Jarrett also. 47/4. Game on!
D Ottewill had been accumulating at the other end as was soon run out by sensible fielding from Thomas 67/5.
At the time Khurran was mid-way through his spell, which has really kept Ripley in the game, 9-6-6-0, 4 of those runs were edged over the keeper, great league debut.
Chuckles Parker claimed T Ottewill for 1, having him play on and Ripley had more than a sniff, overs running out, still a fair amount to do.
D Cary and Harris managed to show some of Ripley’s lads how to bat on this deck and just knocked it about getting Sanderstead closer and closer, the run rate was still up around 4s, which should have been comfortable with wickets in hand.
Styles than direct hit ran out Harris, 97/7, next ball the returning Searle then trapped Aeschlimann LBW for a golden globe, maybe it kept a touch low, maybe that was karma for walking across the pitch deliberately every over when in the field as essentially couldn’t be bothered to walk round..
Skipper C Cary and his brother D Cary, to be fair turned the pressure on Ripley, trying to run as much as they could, to keep the score board ticking over, pressure on the fielders lead to the odd misfield.
Sanderstead got home with 4 balls to go to win a tight game.

Real lesson for Ripley to take on, with the game setup, we threw away the chance of a total, losing our last 8 wickets for 29 runs, in 12 overs. Not good enough.
Also however impressive the bowling was, some slack ground fielding and lazy walking in maybe gave Sanderstead 10+ runs, which in a tight game is always going to go against you.
Fair play to Sanderstead decent bunch, and look forward to playing them again.

Highlights:
Ripley
Panting 59
Jarrett 2/29, Thomas 2/31
Sanderstead
D Cary 21*, D Ottewill 21
Rajiv 2/13, T Ottewill 2/20