Young Stags show off their class with two big victories

ASHTEAD U12s triumphed at the In-Touch Sixes Tournament held at Epsom College.

The tournament offered five overs per innings and Ashtead successfully competed against Capel, East Molesey, Chessington and Purley.

Ashtead won all their group games and overcame Capel in their semi-final before facing East Molesey in the final who defeated Chessington in the other semi.

Ashtead batted first and scored 66-1 helped by a 34 not out for Harry Williams, who was named player of the tournament.

East Molesey got close and scored 57-2 in their five overs leaving Ashtead winners of this inaugural tournament by nine runs.

And their success did not stop there as they won the final of the West Surrey Youth Cricket League T20 competition with a solid display against Guildford.

Both sides were weakened due to holidays, but Ashtead's batting proved the key difference on the day, batting first Ashtead posted a huge score of 163 that was always going to be a tough target.

Losing only two wickets in the 30 overs, Ashtead's openers batted well, with Hayden Storey especially bruttle on anything able to be hit, as he retired on 31 in just 20 balls.

Williams joined Caprano-Wint and they too continued the batting progress, both retiring themselves with 32 (21 balls) and 30 (36 balls) respectively.

Homes and Nichols joined the party and ran extremely well together with Homes scoring 28 not out of 19 balls and Nichols the first man out in the 19th over for 22 off 21 balls.

The innings was wrapped up in the 20th over with Ashtead amassing 163, at more than eight an over this was a very good score on a good batting pitch.

Opening up, Rose (4-0-16-0) and Williams (4-0-20-2) made it difficult for the Guildford openers, and with just 24 runs coming from the first seven overs for the lose of one wicket, Guildford were really up against it.

Skipper Homes switched the bowling round to give most boys a bowl.

Guildford found the going comfortable, but never at a quick enough rate to trouble the Ashtead fielding side.

Their total of 124 was a good score, but 39 short of Ashtead’s.

The day was clearly a batting day, with 287 runs scored for just five wickets taken.

Some excellent batting all round, with Storey singled out by the umpires for his man of the match knock.