St. Mary’s took on unbeaten and top of the table Sherfield On Loddon with only 3 of the players who played the previous match at Hartley Wintney, showing the depth of this season’s squad, but probably a weaker side than skipper Jambo would have wanted. Winning the toss Jambo chose to bat first, mostly because the best hope with a limited bowling attack was to post a big score and hope that Sherfield would struggle chasing.

Against very good bowling Tom & Jambo battled but scored slowly, not through lack of trying but through the good bowling and a pitch which was more like Newfound in that there was some uneven bounce. With the score just past 100 Jambo & Tom fell in quick succession. Andy Tucker coming in at 3 was determined to increase the scoring rate and from his first ball he showed this aggression. Andy scored very quickly and was really unlucky with a ball on a length which did not really bounce and just clipped his off stump for a creditable 28 from 25 balls. At the other end Stevie Reid also struck out well and ran well with Andy to score 20 off 18 before a badly judged single saw him run out. This brought Satheesh and Rupert Shelley to the middle. Both battled hard against the very good bowling to see St. Mary’s close in on 200 but for the first time this season we just failed on 191 for 4.

With three recognised bowlers St. Mary’s needed to bowl very well to defend this good total. First ball of the innings goes for 5 wides, and this set the tone. Nathan, once he hit his line did bowl well, but only Stevie could come away having bowled really well with 2 for 22 off his 8 overs. Sherfield were always ahead of the run rate but St. Mary’s did chip away with the wickets and at 158 for 6 there was a small glimmer of light but a few overs later this glimmer was snuffed out. A good win for Sherfield and disappointment for St. Mary’s.

After the match we had the sadness of saying goodbye to Satheesh, who over the past three seasons has been a consistent player turning out most weeks, and performing well with both bat and ball, taking 19 wickets in 2024. Not only has Satheesh been a consistent performer over these 3 years he is one of the great characters in the team. We wish him all the best as he returns home to India and rejoins his family.