Surrey Championship First XI division five

Chipstead-Coulsdon & Walcountians 362

Wallington 144

STEVE Hirst's new look Chipstead side got off to the best possible start as they thrashed Wallington by more than 200 runs.

Wallington, cruelly denied of their overseas superstar Qadir, stuck Chipstead in on what always looked a good deck.

Hirst opened up with new signing, Nick Woods.

Woods, in his first season in the south having moved down from Blackburn, continued where he left off the week before (98 against Oxted).

Such classical, technically correct, stroke play has rarely been seen at Chips', certainly not on a green top in early May.

The skipper complemented him perfectly with his usually array of bunts and slaps, as an opening partnership of 187 soon took the game away from the visitors.

Hirst finally succumbed to medium pacer, Atkins, for 82. A first league ton still proving annoyingly elusive.

Daryl Hattingh, having a break from keeping this year to concentrate on scoring big runs, continued where Hirst had left off, hitting a couple of mighty blows as he looked to get set.

But it was Woods who took centre stage as he brought up his century from 138 balls in typically immaculate style.

When Woods holed out for 111, looking to push the rate up, Chips found themselves in a commanding position with 10 overs left. Hattingh was out, deceived by a rare straight one, a couple of overs later for 28, the score now 237 from 42 overs.

Enter Jarred Tait - younger brother of Aussie test player Shaun.

He exploded in a boundary peppering, tree clearing, all out assault on an increasingly weary attack, hitting 50 from 17 balls.

He began the last over of the innings on 70. Three balls later he was on 84, then, just when the impossible seemed possible, he skied one, which was well held by the bowler and he was dismissed with a staggering 84 from 30 balls.

Useful cameos from Alan Clark (32 from 20 balls) and Richard Brewster (nine from five) saw the scoreboard showing the new division five record score of 362-5.

Give Wallington credit, they came out dashing and, aided by some uncharacteristically wayward opening bowling from Elliot Noble and Leigh Padfield, they were soon on 62 from 12 overs with only one wicket down – Rosario failing to deal with Noble in the very first over.

Re-enter Tait and Brewster, and the next 10 overs went for just 16 runs, Tait picking up his first three Chipstead league wickets.

There was even a chance for the third of the Chipstead winter acquisitions to get into the game, new wicketkeeper Ryan Birdbeak neatly collecting a snick from one of Tait's unplayable seamers. When Ben Watson held on to his second steepling snow collector, Tait could boast a five wicket haul to go with the carnage from earlier.

The Wallington batsmen soldiered on and made Chips' work hard for the final couple of wickets, ever silver Greg Barber picking up one and Nick Woods claiming a couple with his left arm wrist spinners.