U11's away at Bearstead May 19th

Marden U11's vs Bearsted U11's ..... Following the heroics of the previous week the U11's were subject to selection issues with the fixture clashing with DCPS U10's and U11's matches . We therefore had to put out a weakened team with many playing there first ever match. Bearsted batted first and were restricted to just 231-10 it was now crucial that Marden didn't lose wickets and with a great team effort they ended up scoring 250-4 . A very good performance by all , well captained by Callum O'Brien with wickets for weaker bowlers and runs for weaker batsmen. An exceptional result.

League Week 4

1st XI lose in last over v Milstead

2nd XI take the first win against the Auld enemy (Staplehurst)

1st match report: Match Report: Marden lost to Milsted by 3 wickets.

The skipper won the toss and elected to bat on a nice afternoon for batting. Brewer (22) and Sunnucks T (36) opened and once again created a very healthy start to our innings. Sunnucks P and Burdge took over only for Nick to perish run out. The skipper (35) joined Sunnucks P (30) and began to support his aggressive hitting putting on a quick 50 partnership. Tomkinson B (22) Samuel (23) continued the form from last week running well between the wickets and accelerating the score on to 185. Tomkinson S (10) Blythin, Karim and Athwal got us to 200 for 9.

Milsted began their reply very aggressively with Annand and Chick hitting the ball very hard, but often airborne. The skipper hung on to a low catch from Chick at mid on to give the vice skipper his first wicket. Milsted were up with the run rate. Matt then bowled Sellar the Milsted skipper to put them on the back foot. What happened next was one of those moments that at our level of sport I find distressing. The whole Marden team appealed for a catch to the keeper off Blythin to Milsted’s number 4 (who had top edged just about every delivery up to that time) their umpire completely unmoved! batsman embarrassed spluttering something about hitting pads!! He went on to score a very ugly 88 not out. Comment of the match “Hey Matty take the splinters out of the ball before the next delivery!!” ………………………………………………..my feeling “What goes around comes around number 4”!!

Our bowlers tried in vain to stem the cross batted hitting and airborne shots that landed safely. Samuel, Blythin, Athwal, Karim all troubled the batsmen and particularly Tomkinson B who was too quick for Annand and Hopkins.

However Milsted managed to get to our total in the 44th over, making heavy weather of it late on with Mr Splinter’s chaotic running/ calling, losing 2 late wickets to run outs.

Big thanks to:
Sam Tomkinson well kept
Rich Brewer for delaying his trip to Chester
Paul Sunnucks…………….should be on Britain’s got talent
Harry "Baby" Karim - “You should have thrown the ball to me sooner skip!”
and finally Nav for stepping up to the 1st team and taking another wicket.

Richard Hunter

Super 2nds subdue Staplehurst

For the 2nd consecutive week the captain lost the toss and Marden were asked to bat first again. After losing JJ and Rupert 3rd and 4th ball of the 2nd over it was looking like Eynsford all over again. Adam Fraser joined the skipper at the crease and after seeing off the hat trick ball started to up the run rate. Scoring freely Adam raced to 50 and ended up bowled for 61 with the score on 101 off 23 overs. The captain started to find the middle of the bat and was finding the boundary with regularity. Ben Bardsley joined the captain and kept the momentum going scoring 13 very quickly before being bowled. Richard Thomas strode to the crease and together with the captain (83) continued to blast the Staplehurst bowlers around the ground. Richard ended up on 34 not out and the Marden total ended on 221 for 5.
The Staplehurst reply started quickly wtih the 2 openers holding no prisoners, blasting the ball to all parts and were soon above the run rate. A fine catch by Ben soon gave John Hancock his first Marden wicket. The respite didn’t last long and the batsman continued to score heavily. The introduction of JJ slowed the run rate and from his 10 overs he only conceded 24 runs and picked up 4 well deserved wickets. A special mention must go to Rupert for his catch at deep mid on which helped turn the game away from the crash, bang wallop batting of Staplehurst. Marden started to pick up regular wickets with Lampard getting 1, Alex Newport getting 1, John Hancock finishing with 2. Even though Marden picked up regular wickets Staplehurst only needed 10 off the last 2 overs to win. Adam crowned off a good day by getting the last man and his second wicket to give the 2nd team their first win of the season. A great team effort and a 3rd consecutive win over the old enemy.

Chris Watts