Another glorious day during the fantastic spring saw what looked to be a strong St. Mary’s lineup take on AWE Tadley. The pitch was hard to read, how would it play? Keith won the toss and with another strong batting lineup chose to bat first. This seemed a good decision, despite very good bowling from AWE Tom & Alex pushed the score on to 53 when Tom was caught behind. Tob joined Alex and Toby continued his fine form from the week before, Alex was out for 26 which brought Woody in to join Toby and together they pushed the score on to 185 when Toby was brilliantly caught by the AWE keeper well down the leg side. A mini collapse followed as St Mary’s moved to 209 for 7 before Ali & Dan put on a very good unbeaten partnership of 42 in very quick time. A score of 251 at the midway point looked very good.

AWE quickly showed their intention to try to chase but lost their two openers quickly the first to an amazing catch by Tom one handed full stretch off Alex’s nippy bowling and the second from a brilliant runout by Toby at midwicket with a direct hit on the stumps from side on. This brought Calum Saint to the wicket, he plundered a very quick 85 off 77 balls before Toby clean bowled him. It was always tight and the wicket of Saint possibly pushed the pendulum towards St. Mary’s and a couple more wickets fell to Satheesh and Phil, but this brought Amrit Singh who earlier had bowled very well, Singh then hit 60 off 40 balls to see AWE to victory with a 4 off the very last ball of the innings. What a disappointment, what a breathtaking match.