Surrey Championship

Division One

East Molesey 190

Ashtead 98

ASHTEAD suffered a major blow to their promotion prospects as they comprehensively lost to East Molesey, a result that sees them fall to fifth in the table.

After winning the toss, and electing to field, East Molesey quickly rammed home an early advantage thanks to attacking batting from opener Harry Glynn. Meanwhile, his colleague, Dylan Thomson, was quietly working away at the other end.

The Stag's opening bowlers Devon Weekes (0-40) and James Cameron (0-29) were finding the going tough, and the 50 partnership came up in the 11th over, followed by Glynn's half century just three overs later.

Stand in skipper John Vaughan-Davies (1-22) eventually found the breakthrough, trapping Glynn lbw, and from there wickets began to tumble.

Vaughan Davies effected the run out of Sam Burge for a duck then Josh Pickering (2-31) and Tom Deighton (2-26) applied the pressure with some top slow bowling.

The fast and fiery Marlon Cornelius was introduced and quickly took advantage of his late opportunity, helping Deighton reduce the visitors to 168-7.

Some late resistance saw East Molesey up to 190 all out, but the Stags were more than happy with proceedings at this point.

However, things did not go to plan after the break.

Andrew Roberts and Brendan O'Connell, the Ashtead openers, came out to bat, and it soon became clear that while Thomson (5-18) at one end was a danger, Glynn (2-33) was less so as O'Connell pounced and scored 18 off a single over.

But it was not to last, as in the very next over, O'Connell became the first victim of Thomson - a stray top edge to Barrett in the slips.

This started a wave of wickets as Roberts, Cameron, Vaughan-Davies, Mike Sanderson , Neil Farnsworth and Weekes were all dismissed for single figure scores to leave Ashtead reeling at 40-7.

After the shock of such a collapse, the remaining batsman made a good show of the rest of the innings. Deighton and Pickering remained solid and saw off both Thomson and Glynn, before capitalising against the other bowling.

With the partnership was going along well, and with the score up to 84-7 off 29, there were hopes that perhaps the Stags might see the remaining 21 overs through - although the 107 required for victory looked a little less promising.

But, it was not to be. Barrett found his form and swiftly cleaned up the tail. First Deighton went, caught at short leg by Glynn for 14, a valiant effort in such circumstances. His long-standing colleague Pickering went in the following over for 30, the top score of the innings.

The final partnership of keeper Simon Feeney and Cornelius tried in vain to continue the efforts of the previous batsmen, but when Cornelius was caught in the covers by Ben Campbell, the resurgence was over. East Molesey had won by 93 runs, also claiming the bonus point.

Ashtead probably need to win all four of their remaining matches to have a realistic chance of promotion, starting at Brook on Saturday.