Hurlingham Club CC

The Sussex Martlets have had a fantastic season, with many triumphs, but yesterday wasn’t one of them. The Martlets succumbed to a fantastic Hurlingham side amid the beautiful settings of Arundel Castle.

Some fine bowling from Ben Davies opening from the Castle End provided the Martlets’ only success from the seam attack. Although Derek Horsham (N.B the first arrival of the day) and Ian Hartland toiled away patiently with nothing to show in the fourth column of the scorebook.

M. Wales (98) fell short of what would have been a fantastic hundred for Hurlingham – undone by the safe hands of Ian Hartland off the bowling of Matt Reynolds. In total the Martlets used eight bowlers, the pick of whom was Tom Fairfax. He ended with figures of two for 23 at the death courtesy of two well judged stumpings by el capitano, Marcus Campopiano. All in all it was a good batting performance, with the visitors finishing on 257 for four on a typically flat deck, leaving very little for us to cheer about.

The batting innings got off to a flyer with some good batting from George Read (34), Joe Ludlow, and some generous bowling, gifting the Martlets to a few easy extras to get the innings under way.

Ludlow took his chances as he so often does, racing to 61 at a strike rate of 145, caressing the ball to all parts with extreme precision. Entering the tea break at 104 for one off 13 overs the win seemed imminent. But as we all know “cricket is a funny game” and as wickets started to fall, and the run rate began to rise the task became too much for the Martlets. Some valiant defence from Nick Ratcliffe (24) and some late boundaries from Ben Davies had the home team all out for 221. Our undoing can be attributed mainly to S. Chapman (15-1-67-6) who bowled with great control.

The was the first fixture of this kind between the Sussex Martlets and the Hurlingham Club. It was certainly the blossoming of a great friendship between the two clubs and hopefully a fixture that will continue to develop.