FARNHAM 131-6 (37.1) beat DULWICH 130 (49.2) by 4 wickets
Another horrendous batting collapse saw Dulwich go down to defeat by four wickets in their AJ Fordham Surrey Championship Division 2 match at Farnham.
Dulwich chose to bat but found scoring difficult against accurate bowling by the Farnham seamers. Five wickets went down for just 45 runs, though loose shots were the main cause of most of these dismissals. Robbie Goldsworthy bowled his ten overs straight through to take the first four wickets for only 17 runs, and 15 year old Luke Griffiths took a good return catch to claim the fifth. Will Bancroft and Michael Harms came together in the 22nd over and added 41 for the sixth wicket in 15 overs. Bancroft made most of the running, scoring 34 off 67 balls before picking out the long on fielder. Any hopes that skipper Jon Lodwick would repeat his heroics of last week were soon dashed when he was run out for just 2. Two more wickets fell in the 42nd over to reduce Dulwich to 98-9. Alex Gledhill joined Harms and the pair added 32 for the tenth wicket before Harms was run out in the last over, having faced 68 balls for his 26. Gledhill remained undefeated for 11 as Dulwich were dismissed for 130.
Nathan Thorpe, nephew of former England batsman Graham, opened the Farnham reply with Guy Hicks, and the pair posted 34 in seven overs against Lodwick and Simon Harwood. 16 year old leg spinner Ahmed Khan imposed some restraint, but the pair had advanced to 59 in the 17th over when slow left armer Frankie Brown got the breakthrough, dismissing Thorpe for 28, and he followed up with a second wicket three balls later, and a third in his next over. Khan also struck in the intervening over as Farnham declined from 59-0 to 66-4. But Hicks remained and skipper Tom Grimes helped him add 23 for the fifth wicket before the latter fell to Brown for 11. The spinners could make no further inroads as Hicks and Russell Golding added 38 for the sixth wicket, and it took the return of Harwood to remove Golding for 26 with the score on 127. Hicks hit the winning boundary to finish on 56 not out and see Farnham to their victory after 37.1 overs.
Brown finished with 4-26 off his ten overs while Khan had 1-28 off his ten. But things became rather heated towards the end, and Brown was given a warning for a Level 1 offence.
Dulwich slip to fourth place in the table after this defeat, but are only one point behind the two teams that have overtaken them into joint second. Next week they have a home fixture against Oxted and Limpsfield, who are currently seventh having won one, lost two and had two rained off.