Woking & Horsell Cricket Club -

Thank you very much indeed to the few that came down to the club on Saturday to help tidy up following a long season.  It is much appreciated. The club has now been put to bed for its winter hibernation.

Many of you will have already seen our fantastic new kitchen and it is with great pleasure that we formally announce the completion of this latest stage of improvement works at the club. The work was undertaken by James Allan, a friend of the club, and we extend our thanks to him for an excellent job.

We were delighted to receive a grant of £3,000 from the ECB through their Small Grants Scheme and very pleased to invest a further £1,000. The ECB, in awarding the grant, have recognised the great work that the club does in promoting cricket, particularly among the colts section, and the importance of excellent facilities in support of this.

We will continue to look at ways of improving the facilities at the club and would welcome any help you are able to provide in this endeavour.

A huge thank you to all of you that turned out for the W&HCC Awards Night 2015.  We had a great time putting it together and we hope you enjoyed being there. Despite some disappointing performances from our teams in general there have been some outstanding individual performances. A number of our players have had their best invidual performance ever for the club in the 2015 season.  Congratulations to you all. Here is a list of the worthy winners:

1stXI Player of the Year - James Woods

2ndXI Player of the Year - Jonny Gardner

3rdXI Player of the Year - Matt Allan

4thXI Player of the Year - Tom Harlow

5thX Player of the Year - Jeevan Namboodiri

Sun 1stXI Player of the Year - Rehan Ahmad

Sun 2ndXI Player of the Year - Ejaz Ahmed

Young Player of the Year - Jack Fairey

Fielder of the Year - Siva Rajendran

Clubman of the Year - Damien Honey

Photos from the night are available in the Photo Gallery

During our game on Sunday, one of our players had his car broken into. Theives smashed a window with a large stone and stole a sat nav and other valuables. Please make sure that your valuables are not on show and take extra care when parking at the club.

W&HCC Committee

The winners of our Blue Bails Bowl Out in aid of Cricket United were the Hargan family and Seb Egan who beat the 2ndXI team captained by Oli Guy, much to the delight of everyone else. It was a fairly poor display by the bowlers who were beaten by a team who didn't bowl a ball for the club yesterday!  Thank you very much to everyone who took part in the competition. We raised £65 for a great cause. 

A weekend that saw much better availability unsurprisingly saw much better results as we won four games out of five.

The 1stXI won their game at Hampton Wick which was due in part to the bowling of Calum Chisholm who took six wickets in a match for the second time in recent weeks. Having been asked to bat, Malcolm Eddington dominated the scoring in the opening overs and when he was out for 57 we had 70-3 on the board. Most of the other batsmen got a start, with Liam Monaghan (34) making the largest contribution, but wickets fell steadily and we were all out for 186 in the 49th over. Chisholm and Paul Norris both took early wickets but a solid third wicket partnership brought Hampton back into the game. Some tidy bowling from Arun Aiyer (3-23 from 11 overs)  helped rip out the middle order but with the hosts scoring steadily it was definitely game on. Chisholm, though, had the final word as he bowled the last four batsmen to win us the game.

The 2ndXI were well beaten by Purley at Brewery Road. Despite an early wicket, taken by Abdul Zafar, we struggled with the ball as the second wicket put on 163 which enabled the visitors to build a large total of 273-5 from 48 overs. Our innings didn't get going as five of our batsman made 20 but none of them got past 30. We were bundled out for 152 leaving us 121 runs short of Purley's total.

The 3rdXI won their first game for two months as they edged past Sanderstead by two wickets. With Matt Allan somewhere on the M25, stand in skipper Andrew Murphy invited the hosts to bat on an extremely tricky wicket. The early exchanges involved the odd wicket, boundaries, byes and some extraordinary bounces as full pitched deliveries bounced over keeper Connor Dean's head. The Sanderstead skipper was the only batsman to make more than 12 but with his watchful defence and punchy strokes he kept the hosts up with the rate. Matt Allan's seamers squeezed the rate after the drinks break and he finally dismissed their skipper for 81. Jack Fairey bowled with some excellent flight and guile and he finished with 3-11 from his seven overs bowling out the hosts for 168.
Jack Allen dominated the start of our innings as Josh Koch, Tom Sharpless and Connor Dean were all out for single figure scores. Andrew Murphy and Allen put on 40 for the fourth wicket before Jack (59) was out to a ball of "exceptional" bounce. Siva Rajendran and Imran Khan were both out cheaply leaving us just over half way to our target six wickets down. Murphy and Mo Waseem put on 25 for the seventh wicket before Murphy was out for 17. Waseem was also out for 17 with the score on 129-8. Cometh the hour cometh the man as Matt Allan took over, playing shots around the wicket and, in conjunction with Jack Fairey, the required total drew closer.  Allan eventually finished on 36* as we reached our total with four overs to spare.

The 4thXI kept up their impressive run as they won by five wickets at home to Beddington. The fours attack has had a lot is success this season and this year it was the turn of Paul Fortescue to play the lead role. His figures of 4-15 from 14 overs were the best of the day. He was aided by Richard Lewis who took two wickets and Vir Singh who took three as the visitors were dismissed for 77. We soon found ourselves in deep trouble in reply at 19-4. Skipper Tom Harlow, as he often has in these situations this year, led from the front by making 26 not out as he shepherded our middle order towards our target. Sagar Nayyar was run out for 13 but a few swishes from Rehan Ahmad (22*) was enough to see us home.

The 5thXI took advantage of the conditions to post an extremely impressive 225-2 declared at East Molesey with Ralph Lumby impressing again with 88*, Rajesh Rao 54* and even our own skipper Mike Walsh made 46 unique runs. It was a total that proved too much for Molesey and they were dismissed for 161.

The team of the weekend was the Sunday 1stXI who racked up an astonishing 360-6 in just 39 overs in their win. Steve Jones smashed an astonishing 156* and he was helped along the way by a fantastic hundred from Will Pyle.

The Sunday twos were well beaten by Concorde CC. Making just 110 all out it took the opposition just nine overs to pass our total.