Wow – what a season for Royal Ascot Cricket Club!

With league titles already in the bag for the 2s and 3s, and a West Surrey Cup win for the Under 11s, the question was could the 1s come to the party as well in Week 18?

So the 1s hosted Purley-on-Thames while Aldershot in 3rd place hosted Thatcham Town in 2nd place. It was finely balanced.

Purley won the toss and asked Ascot to bat. Runs were hard to come by – Green fell for 5, Sweetman for 8 and Miller for 15 to make it 53 for 3. A 55 partnership between James Gamble (18) and James Wensley got us over the 100 mark but then Gamble and Carr fell while the score was 108. Wensley fell for a great 60 and then Murray was out with the score 121 for 7. Nick Wiggett and Will Ellison got the score to 147 for 7 after 52 overs – just missing out on two batting points.

Over at Aldershot, Thatcham Town were inserted and made 190 all out from 51.5 overs. So this made the points table as follows:

Thatcham Town – 296

Royal Ascot – 294

Aldershot – 289.

Purley-on-Thames went into bat and Clarke and Masters put on 27 before Clarke was bowled for 15 by Will Ellison. Jeffrey fell to May and Reber fell to Ellison leaving them 31 for 3. Then Andy Murray and Jason Carr were brought into the attack and 8.4 overs later Purley-on-Thames were all out for 53 and Carr with 2 for 5 and Murray 5 for 8 ripped out the middle order and tailenders to take the 25 points and the Division 3A title for the 1s.

A great season by a young team that was brilliantly led by Nick Sweetman.

The 2s finished the season at Teddington Town 2s. A close match saw Teddington Town make 176 all out with Rob Try taking 4 for 43. The 2s then managed to reach their target with 8 wickets down. Contributions from Arup Vidyerthy 54, Murray Barter 27, Patrick Edrich 29 and Rob Try’s 24 not out saw us home.

The 3s played against a strong British Airways 3s who needed a win to avoid relegation. Ascot were asked to bat and reached a reasonable 163 all out thanks to George Payne’s 57 and Joshua Oshea’s 56. M Azizi was the pick of the bowlers with 7 for 64

However, British Airways made lightwork of the score and reached the target in the 24th over for the loss of only 4 wickets. Many thanks to British Airways for their sportsmanship at the end of the match by giving the team a guard of honour for winning the title – it was a great touch – and you would say if they can get a team out every week like that then they will be strong title contenders next season.

The 4s signed off with an away match against Cove Academy. Put into bat the 4s made a very useful 164 for 6 in 47 overs thanks to John Dunnet’s 46, Dirk Benneyworth’s 33, Ralph Week’s 22 and Mark Wiggett’s 18 not out. In the end it was a comfortable win for the 4s as they bowled Cove Academy out for 83 with Ben Taylor signing off for the club with 3 for 19 and the skipper – Ralph Weeks taking 3 for 11. The 4s finished a very comfortable 5th in Division 8A and if a couple of results had gone their way then they could have been in the promotion fight right until the end.

So a great celebration was had back at the clubhouse on Saturday night – and the celebrations continued into Sunday as the Under 11s won the West Surrey League title to complete the League & Cup double.

It is very pleasing to so the number of younger players across all the sides and seeing regular contributions from several of our talented Under 14 players.

I’d like on behalf of the whole club to say a few thank yous.

At the matches, to our scorers, Gordon Lupton, Judy Wiggett & Ian Dummigan, to our umpires Dave Cooper and Ian Pamphilion and our great tea ladies led by Beryl King.

To our groundsman, Tony King, who does a great job considering the amount of senior and colts matches we have at the Racecourse and although we may have been able to play every league Saturday – the weather during the week has certainly made it challenging in preparing the pitches.

On the colts side – all the age group managers and Michael Burling, our Colts Chairman.

But there is one person who deserves a massive thank you – who is at the club most night for coaching evenings, midweek matches and also playing on a Saturday – and that is our amazing chairman – Mark Wiggett.

To him we dedicate this amazing season at Royal Ascot Cricket Club.