Untitled Document

Date:- Sat. June 9th

Venue:- Ragley Park

Team:-

B. Lee ¤

S. Quirke

G. Strain †

M. Greenway

P. Dipple

A. Warbrick

M. Woolley

A. Peachey

A. Shaw

G. Reader

S. Capron

Exhall & Wixford 1st 209 - 6 beat A&RPCC 1st 207 - 8 by 4 wickets

A thrilling game between the 2 local rivals was won by Exhall in the last over.

Ragley won the toss and batted on a hot day at Ragley Hall in front of a good crowd. They had a bad start as Matt Greenway was adjudged lbw for 0 in Chris Prescott's first over. After this Shaun Quirke and Gary Strain batted very well together and weathered the early storm from the Exhall opening bowlers. Then Strain was out caught off his glove from the bowling of Steve Kerby for a well constructed 31, before Quirke followed in the next over from the bowling of Andy Marsh for 37. Debutant Adam Warbrick was then out for 1 to leave Ragley wobbling at 75-4.

This bought captain Ben Lee to the crease to join Paul Dipple. They set about consolidating the innings with a mixture of solid defence and some big hitting, essentially from Dipple. They had raised the score to 150 when Lee was run out for 26. Dipple was still there and Ragleys hopes of a big score rested on his shoulders. He kept taking the attack to the Exhall bowlers, despite wickets falling at the other end to the wily off spin of veteran John Park who claimed 3 -55. Dipple was out for a typically exciting innings of 61, including 4 sixes. Steve Capron then came in, fresh from his excellent knock last week, and carried on in the same vein, hitting the last 2 balls of the innings for 4 and 6 to finish on 22 not out, and lift Ragley to a respectable 207 -8. The pick of the Exhall bowlers was Steve Kerby who took 2-30, despite struggling with his line early on he came back strongly in his 2nd spell.

In reply Exhall lost ex-Ragley player Gwynn cheaply for 4 much to the delight of the home crowd. However Charles Mulraine and Steve Kerby punished the ill discipline of some of the Ragley bowling and made full use of any poor balls by hitting them for boundaries. This allied with the extras that were being haemorrhaged by the bowlers lifted Exhall very quickly up to 115-1 from only 22 overs. Then Shaun Quirke had Kerby lbw for 50, and from this point on the scoring rate slowed right down. Mulraine had becomed becalmed due to some much better bowling before he was out caught from the bowling of Quirke for 47 and Ferley followed shortly afterwards for 12, lbw to Geoff Reader. This bought Exhall captain Simon Hollands in, and very quickly back out again as he received a snorter from Quirke to be bowled for 1. Ragley were right now back in the match after at one stage leaving Exhall only 90 to win with 9 wickets and 23 overs left. The run rate was climbing all the time as Quirke and Reader finished off their spells, taking 3-20 and 1-40 respectively.

Exhall now required 48 from the last 8 overs with 5 wickets in hand, Ragley desperately needed another wicket to get into the Exhall lower order batsmen. Scott Carmichael and Prescott however batted very sensibly running well between the wickets and scoring the odd boundary when the occasional poor ball was bowled. Marc Woolley then had Precott out lbw for 15 to swing the game back in Ragley's favour as Exhall required 23 runs from the last 3 overs. New batsman Tom Hennegan set about the task by trying to finish the game very quickly and connected with a couple of balls that flashed to the boundary. Exhall now only required 5 runs from the final over, which they achieved as Capron found the edge of Hennegans bat but could only look on in despair as the ball flew down to the boundary for the winning runs. Carmichael finished on a composed 28 not out to guide his team home.