Weybridge Vandals U21 side visited Farncombe on Sunday 6th August looking to record their first win of the season; having lost two and had one abandoned of their other fixtures.

Captain Oscar Powell, or “Disco”, won the toss and, feeling the need to apply scoreboard pressure, bravely decided to bat first. Sam Buckell & Edward Drew opened the batting in fairly tricky conditions, with the ball swinging and moving off the seam. They handled it well, scoring 45 for the first wicket and seeing off the opening bowlers before Ed (13) was undone by a beauty from Tom Johanson, which would have cleaned up most batters. Ed batted calmly and confidently for his 13, using his feet and running well. There will no doubt be a big score coming for Ed soon.

With Johanson (1/18 off 8) moving it both ways and bowling particularly well, Dan Fenton looked to unleash one from the other end but only succeeded in hitting the ball to gully.

At 52/2, Arthur Glynn came to the wicket and immediately continued where he left off, having struck 93 not out at Horsham during the week. Early in his innings, Arthur struck the shot of the day (for me), a drive timed perfectly and placed between cover and wide mid off. Vandals reached 60/2 at drinks, and the halfway point in the innings.

The gameplan from the batters after drinks was to get to the second-change bowlers and run much more aggressively. The plan paid off, with Arthur “Mini Marnus” (owing to an array of batting idiosyncrasies, this time touching his bat 5 metres beyond the bowling crease every over) and Sam stealing runs which pressured the bowlers into bowling some bad deliveries. Mini Marnus has a very good habit of putting away bad balls effectively. Their partnership of 77 came to an end when Sam (52) finally decided to get on with it using the agricultural method, scything one straight up in the air. It was an innings described as “classical” by Adrian Waldock, “slow” by most present and “match winning” by the skipper. Make of that what you will.

1st XI VC Sebastian Harrower came and went for 5 and captain Disco (11 not out) played the supporting role to Mini Marnus. Vandals managed to finish an impressive 181/4 off 40 overs, on what was very much a “get in” wicket from a batting perspective.

Tea was very enjoyable, as it ever was at Farncombe, with a wide array of warm goodies such as pizza and chicken wings, plus an assortment of sandwiches, scones (with clotted cream and jam available; the writer chose to apply the cream and jam in the traditional “Somerset style”, which is of course, cream and jam next to each other), quiches lorraine, muffins, melon, half-time oranges, bon bon bon bons and various other bits and pieces. Most involved had at two or even three helpings. Thoroughly excellent.

Vandals started off their bowling with 3 maidens from the first 3 overs, which was welcomed by the fully tea-laden Trust XI, who wouldn’t have been able to move in their melons and scones-induced food coma.

Disco and Seb, or “Tarka the Otter”, continued their fine work with the ball, with Tarka removing Johanson with the score on just 4, caught well at the wicket by Ed Drew. Tarka returned figures of 5-3-7-1, but was removed from the attack by the skipper after forcing Doe to retire hurt, having been struck by a length ball on the elbow.

With the skipper himself bowling tidily (7-2-14-2, both bowled), the openers had sufficiently tied down the Farncombe batting. At 22/3 and requiring over 6 runs an over, it was a tricky chase for the hosts. Oscar introduced cousins Zach “Dragonball” Powell and Lucas “Zade” Powell, and Alex “Nadal” Foot to the attack, who all came up against two very experienced batters, who punished anything slightly askew. Alex nearly took a blinding catch off his own bowling, which surely would have been one of the catches of the season, but it didn’t quite stick. Despite the unrelenting batting, the lads persevered admirably, with Alex consistently shrugging and smilling-off a bad ball and the Powell boys running in again and again. Lucas finally did the trick, bowling Burton for 32 with a textbook left hander’s delivery which swung in on a perfect line and length and hit the top of the stumps.

Leo Hooper replaced Alex and after one over of getting his rhythm right, bowled lots of threatening balls at good pace. Having bounced Luff, and with spicy pace, he earned his new nickname, “Woody”. He duly delivered on the nickname the very next ball by coming around the wicket and falling over in his follow-through whilst trying to give Luff some more chin-music. It was determined, aggressive and exciting stuff and great to see a young player getting stuck into an experienced senior player. Woody won the battle ultimately, with Luff (63) cutting hard to Foot, with the safe hands, at backward point.

At 130/5 the two danger batsmen had been dismissed. Despite a few counter-attacking blows from the lower order, the remaining 4 wickets were cleaned up by Woo Powell (3/6) - including some very sharp glovework by Edward Drew to claim a stumping – and Dan Fenton, believe it or not, who was determined to bowl down the leg side, until finally bowling out the opposition’s final batter (the retired hurt batter never resumed his innings). Farncombe all out for 155, 26 runs short of Vandals’ total.

In summary, Vandals won an enjoyable game. Their batting followed a sensible trajectory, with the team batting watchfully to leave wickets in the tank for the back end of the innings. The bowling innings for Vandals followed three distinct periods: the opening 15 overs, which Vandals comfortably won and kept the run-rate down; the middle overs where the experienced Farncombe batters put the pressure on Vandals’ bowlers; and the final overs after the fifth wicket was taken.

The wicketkeeping from Ed Drew was fantastic throughout the innings; very nifty footwork, characteristically fast hands and he got the basics right. Having an excellent wicketkeeper provides confidence to the whole team and with more matches, he’ll get better and better.

Vandals were excellently skippered by Oscar Powell, who showed maturity beyond his years in ensuring that all players were involved and possibly more importantly, by holding his nerve when it looked as if the opposition were turning the match in their favour.

One noticeable area to improve on, as pointed out by coaches Powell, was the extras. 19 wides in particular made the game much closer than it should have been, but I suppose we like to entertain! That is something for the bowlers to go away and work on, as keeping the extras down allows the bowlers to apply more pressure to the batters.

A well-deserved victory in which everyone contributed and hopefully, a game of cricket all the lads enjoyed.