Surrey Championship

Division Three

Warlingham 214-8

Worcester Park 215-5

A BRIEF shower held up the start of this game which resulted in the loss of two overs, but Warlingham were unable to hold up Worcester Park's progress at the top of division three.

Actually, Warlingham made a much better fist of this top versus bottom encounter than might have been expected. Playing away for the for the first time since May, they were inserted and openers Nigel Field and Shane Patel made good progress until Field was trapped lbw for 32 with the score on 73.

Patel maintained his good form of recent weeks and took the score to 145 with Alex Pizzey until he was out for a fine 72, easily his best innings for the first XI.

Pizzey continued to press for runs and received useful help from Hitesh Patel who made 25, but with four other batsmen failing to get off the mark, the Warlingham total was not as high as it could have been.

Pizzey was out for 60 just before the innings closed at 214-8.

The home team's batsmen also put on well over a hundred for the first two wickets, this time 133 as first Dexter Smith with 51 and then Rod Waite with 54 gave Worcester Park the platform they needed, although they were slightly behind the clock.

After Waite was brilliantly caught one-handed on the boundary by Andy McNamee off Nihal Patel, and Joe Hill fell cheaply, Park were 148-4 needing 67 from nine overs and Warlingham's hopes briefly rose.

However, a quick 35 from Sagar and an equally quick 25 from Asad Ladha left Galloway De Groot to hit 18 from nine balls and finish the game with four balls to spare.

Nihal Patel again bowled well and took 3-51 although he suffered from De Groot's late onslaught.