Stowe Templars 8 May 2022

Manager Alex Wildman

Lost by 2 Wickets

SOA 271 - 3 dec (Swapnil Kilkarni 132, Ed Phillips 90)

Stowe Templars 273-8 (Allen 3-43; Woods 2-64)

There cannot be many grounds that can compete aesthetically with Stowe school on a sunny Sunday in early May.

SOA won the toss against a worryingly young looking Stowe "old boys" team and elected to bat. Chris Hutton and Fred Price seeing off the swinging new ball with a calmness that set a good foundation for the coming assault. Fred's bat, more tape than willow, cutting and driving him to a well made 23. The arrival of Swappy and Ed Phillips brought about a 153 run partnership at quicker than a run a ball. Despite Ed's best attempts at securing a long and a relaxing lunch, he was not caught in the final over of the morning and the two of them continued batting after lunch before Ed fell just short of a deserved century, out for 90 of 96 balls. Swappy continued to time the ball superbly, continuing where he ended his 2019 season for SOA, and raced to his century, allowing a declaration at 271 for the loss of only 3 wickets from 50 overs. Swappy finished on 132 not out.

With Greg Woods and Andy Capel (on SOA debut) running in hard and bowling quickly the Stowe openers struggled for fluency and the early wicket of Jackman, well caught by Colin Allen off Greg at gully, had the hosts 9-1. Edges from Andy's end were not carrying, with Tom Tanner elegantly snaffling the ball regularly on the half volley behind the stumps, but Greg claimed a second wicket bowled to keep the hosts contained before Colin got in on things and reduced Stowe to 124-4. To their credit Stowe kept attacking and Dan Hawes, Fred Price and Ben Madden each took wickets at crucial times. The run rate required kept at around 6 an over and Colin bowling the big hitting Stowe number eight kept all results possible into the last over with 8 required. Tom Carr batting at 5 had quietly reached his half century before driving the penultimate ball of the match over mid wicket to claim a Stowe win.

An excellent all day game with one ball separating the two teams. Our thanks go to Stowe School for hosting us, to Mike Knox for umpiring with aplomb and to Richard Grover for managing to get the most of an overcomplicated scorebox.

Alex WIldman