Newdigate 2s travelled to Ottershaw knowing that anything less than an excellent performance wouldn’t be enough to compete with the team currently sitting 2nd in the league. Sadly, the performance that the Newdigate batting unit put out on the day was by far the worst this season and was not in any way complimentary to the bowlers who did an excellent job earlier in the afternoon. This leaves the 2s in the lower end of the league requiring a couple of wins to push them back up the table and avoid relegation.

Ottershaw batted first and soon made it clear that they were going to be challenging with Rasheed Hasan and Zain Awan both scoring freely to bring up the fifty run stand inside 10 over. Laurance Down made the first breakthrough having had Awan (21) caught behind off his first legal delivery. This however did not stop the free scoring by Rasheed who took full advantage of all the missed catches and run outs by the visitors to bring up his personal fifty in style. He was finally bowled by Tom Gross for an excellent 70 but not before setting a great platform for his team.

Given the lack of bowling options Newdigate Skipper asked his regular keeper Gross to come into the bowling attack in the hope of getting a few overs out of the way. Gross clearly had other ideas and started to create chances and bowled some very promising seam overs to pull things back in Newdigate's favour. His 8 over spell for just 33 runs and 2 wickets was an added bonus to the visitors.

The leader of the bowling unit Ben Crook came into the fold and as he always does, created chances and opportunities which some went a begging. However, his ability to provide breakthrough when required has been a feature thus far this season and Crook finished on 5 wickets for 28 runs in his 9 over spell. His tally of 33 wickets so far this season is a testament to that plus puts him right at the top for the wicket takers in the league with 4 matches still to go.

Newdigate finished well given the circumstances and held their nerve to bowl out Ottershaw for 218 inside the 45 over mark. Still a challenging score but if this was on offer at the start of the day the 2s skipper would have taken this score with a mighty smile! On to teas we went which was pleasant on a muggy afternoon.

Newdigate's run chase got off to the worst possible start by losing a wicket off the very first ball of the inning. From there Farhad Mullahzada and his partner Prashar ran through the top order to break all hearts for the visitors and leave them reeling at 28/6 inside 10 overs which included 3 ducks in a row! The only bit of resistance came from the Ball twins Toby (16) and Harry (27) who put on a 35-run partnership. They showed some skill and aggression to find the boundary on a few occasions and was pleasing to see the two batting together. However, The visitors were soon bowled out for a mere 81 runs with the twins been the only batters to reach double figures.

Although the mood was quite down the 2s were still in good spirit and will look to a better outing this week when they take on Warlingham at the Brocus!