Surrey Championship

Division Five

Stoke D'Abernon 125

Dorking 129-6

DESPITE a second innings fight back with the ball, Stoke D'Abernon were powerless to stop promotion chasing Dorking as the boys from Pixham Lane produced arguably their best performance of the season.

Credit goes to both sides for playing through persistent drizzle, and they served up an excellent advert for Championship cricket.

Dorking's openers Lewis Davies and Ben Overton found the right areas from the off, and took the wickets of Siddhartha Lahiri and Will Patrick inside the first four overs. Lahiri pinned in front by Davies, Patrick unable to do anything other than edge an away-swinger from Overton to keeper Tom Chisman.

Stoke's Tim Handel and Hiken Shah found progress just as difficult. Davies was withdrawn from the attack with figures of 6-4-3-1, and his replacement Scott Kelsey struck in his second over when Handel (10) dragged a ball on to his stumps.

Shah and acting captain Gavin Gresse were made to work hard for their runs, and reached the 25-over drinks break with just 56 on the board.

Shah moved to what would be the match's highest score (37) when he miss-pulled Kelsey to Homewood at mid-wicket.

Tom Frost injected some much needed energy into the Stoke batting effort, but both he and Gresse fell with the score on 90 for 22 and 27 respectively - Frost spooning up a Kelsey delivery that stopped on him, Gresse steering Homewood to slip.

Form man Will Gudgeon departed for a duck, Will Lander - in his first appearance of the season - fell for just a single and despite an enterprising ninth wicket stand between Ian Hopton and Will Frost, both fell with the score on 125 to close the innings.

Homewood (3-26) and Kelsey (3-41) led the Dorking attack, but all five bowlers used took wickets, gave their captain tremendous support, and voice to their well-drilled fielding unit.

The early overs of the Dorking reply were a question of what might have been. Edges through slip, very difficult catches not going to hand countered by the occasional blow for freedom saw an opening stand of 32 posted before first change Lander castled Murray Yabsley for 22.

Shah induced a return catch from Homewood, then Will Frost collected the wicket of opener Chisman for 22, caught at slip by Lahiri.

Homewood decided that attack was the best form of defence before being yorked by Shah, and when the Frost brothers combined to snare Kelsey, stumped for a duck, the sides broke for drinks at 75-5.

After the break, Dymond and Overton decided that attacking the bowling, rather than waiting for one of a number of excellent balls to do for them, was the way to go on a sodden track that was turning.

They added a crucial 39 runs, each hitting a six before the returning Lander bowled Overton for 29. Lander bowled a heavy ball and finished with figures of 2-35 from five overs.

Stoke continued to make the visitors fight for every run, and the winning hit was not made until the last ball of the 37th over as Dorking skipper Dymond crashed a big six to finish 20 not out.

Will Frost returned figures of 2-23 from 10 overs, Shah 2-40 from 17. All the bowlers bowled well in helpful conditions, but in the final analysis, 125 was 20-30 short of what could have been a winning total.

Next week, Stoke host leaders Addiscombe as Dorking look to maintain their excellent form at home to Croydon Municipal .