Free Foresters CC

Sussex Martlets XI v Free Foresters CC played at Arundel Castle on Wed, 10th September 2014

Sussex Martlets 271 – 6 (45 overs – Steven Rae 110, Seb Marlow 73, Dan Wrenn 5-64 )

Free Foresters 194 – 8 (45 overs – Ben Phillips 55*, Mark Trubshaw 3-21, Josh Burrows 2-32)

Sussex Martlets  Won by 77 runs

Shortly after 11am on a beautiful autumnal morning Sussex Martlets won the toss and surprisingly at Arundel, elected to bat first. The thinking being that the wicket looked magnificent as usual and it’s often easier to set a score in a limited overs contest at club level, than to chase one down and The Martlets were desperately keen to regain The Sandy Ross Trophy back from the current holders in this one-off 45 over match.

By 11.40, after 2.5 overs, that thinking was starting to look slightly flawed as the Martlets found themselves precariously placed at 13 for 2 with 2 highly prolific Martlet run scorers back in the hutch. However, young Seb Marlow and jet-lagged kiwi, Steven Rae dug in and consolidated so that at lunch after 30 overs we were nicely positioned on 135 without the loss of any more wickets (due in part to some generous Free Forester fielding). Rae having moved imperiously past his half-century.

With 15 overs to bat after lunch, the Martlets were optimistically hoping to set a target in the region of 240. However Rae & Marlow had other ideas with Rae quickly moving onto a magnificent 110 off 111 balls before being caught and bowled in the 37th over. This brought Sam Cooper to the wicket who ran like a whippet and with Seb Marlow now really striking the ball sweetly, they combined to take the score up to 265 before 3 wickets fell in the last over. Seb unluckily holing out for a superb 93 allowing the Martlets to close on a truly formidable 271 for 6.

Free Foresters now had 15 overs to bat before tea and it was vital they got off to a good start if they were to chase down the Martlets imposing total. They didn’t! Josh Burrows producing a superbly pitched in-swinger to castle The Free Foresters premier opening batsman first ball. Then first ball of Josh’s next over cannoned into the other openers pad plumb in front of all three and the Foresters found themselves at 2 for 1. Mark Trubshaw came into the attack 3 overs before tea and he too took a vital wicket in his first over which left the Free foresters on 44 for 3 at tea and facing a real uphill challenge.

After tea Trubby completed an excellent 9 over spell which brought 2 more wickets and yielded only 21 runs in total. And despite some token resistance from Free Foresters number 8, Ben Phillips (55 off 47 balls), the damage had been done early on and Free Foresters limped to a final score of 194 for 8, with a couple of batsman seemingly opting for batting practice on the Arundel track rather than trying to chase down our total.

Nevertheless, everyone from both sides got into the game in some way and the match was played in a excellent spirit that Sandy Ross would no doubt have approved of. The Trophy was presented to the Martlets skipper after a few well chosen words about Sandy, by Chris Gray.

Thanks to all the castle staff, the umpires and scorer for keeping us on track all day and to Chris Gray for representing the Ross family and presenting the trophy. An excellent day with the perfect result at the end of it!

The Boys Watching Intently

Martlets on the Attack

Winners!

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