Welcome to this week’s Wizzy News – our weekly roundup of news and events at Wisborough Green Cricket Club. If you missed last week’s edition of Wizzy News, please click here

End of Season

Most of our junior age groups will be having their last official training sessions on Friday evening but each age group will be making their own arrangements about potentially continuing for another week or so. Please speak to your age group coach for further details.

We are having an end of season event for our Juniors on Saturday 10 September so please do make a note in your diary.

Women and Girls Tournament

Women and girls’ cricket at Wisborough Green was firmly placed on the map in Sussex last Sunday when over 80 players and 9 teams took part in the first-ever Wisborough Green Cricket Club Women and Girls’ softball tournament in partnership with Sussex Cricket.

In 2021 we established a U13 and U15 girls team who spent their first year training and establishing their cricket skills. This year they will have played several friendlies to master the art of the game and in 2023 we will enter the team into the league for the first time.

In 2022 we have complimented the U13 and U15 teams by establishing a young talent pipeline in the form of a girl’s U11 squad. This has provided extremely popular with up to 16 girls training on the green every Friday at 6 pm. Each week a new face arrives having heard about the team and wanting to be a part of it. The U11 girl’s team have players from Plastow, Ifold and Wisborough Green. At the beginning of this year’s season, the girls were still establishing very basic batting, bowling and fielding skills from scratch – now they are a competitive team able to hold their own in a game shouting ‘wicket ball’ at every opportunity.

The other great addition this year has been the formation of our first-ever Women’s Cricket team. This was always going to be important to enable our older girls to have a team to go to when they grew out of girls’ cricket. The Wisborough Green Women’s team has provided extremely popular – 40 members have joined our Facebook group, we average 16 players training on the green on a Tuesday evening from 7 pm and 20 players arrived to play in our first match against Fernhurst – which we won! The women’s team are aptly named ‘The Lashes’ and are a mix of ‘first timers’ and ‘more seasoned players’ all working together to create a great sense of comradery.

With the U11 and Women’s team formed, as a girl in Wisborough Green you can now start playing cricket at 4 yrs old in our mixed teams and carry on until you decide to hang up your cricket bat!

This year has been a year of moving all the girl’s and women’s teams from cricket skills to match play performance and what better way to showcase this than to host a Cricket Tournament in association with Sussex Cricket.

Last Sunday we were joined by teams from Petworth, Chiddingfold, Storrington, West Chiltington and Thakeham. It was a rather warm day, so ensuring we had all the safeguarding measures in place to support player welfare was very important. The green was decorated with bunting and marquees were dotted around so teams had a base and players could shelter from the sun.

The day began with a four-way 8-aside U11 competition between Chiddingfold, Storrington, West Chiltington and Wisborough Green with two matches on the go at any one time. All the teams played so well, especially given a few young players were playing their first ever game. Wisborough Green came second overall, pipped to the post by the extremely established and very tall Chiddingfold team! This was an outstanding result for our U11 Wisborough girls given they had only started playing cricket 10 weeks prior, for one hour a week! Their team spirit and determination were exceptional and they are all to be commended on how well they played and behaved throughout. The team’s coach Sarah Meurer had a tear in her eye presenting them with their medals before handing the Trophy to Chiddingfold.

This was swiftly followed by an outright water flight complemented by a BBQ lunch and live music. We were so lucky to be joined by Sussex Coaches Charlotte Burton and Lara Johnson who kindly warmed up the U15 Chiddingfold and Wisborough Team in the nets before their game started at 2 pm.

Many thanks to our club photographer Chris Marshall and all those who took these great pics

**Great team spirit by the Wisborough Green under 11 team**

**Under 11 team pic with West Chiltington**

The U15 10-aside game started with Chiddingfold batting, they took advantage of the short boundary and hit lots of 4’s and 6’s to eventually win the game. We knew Chiddingfold were going to be hard to beat, however, the U15 Wisboorugh Team put up a great fight with excellent fielding as usual. Chiddingfold bowling was on point and Wisborough could not catch them on runs in the end. Well done to all the players for a great game.

**Jasmin Johnston-Jones ready and waiting with a perfect setup.**

**Great poise and technique from Emily Edge as she defends a straight one**

**Brooke Meurer about to despatch the ball to Billingshurst**

**Under 15 Player of the match Fizz Gadd**

Finally, it was the turn of the Women’s teams from WIsborough, Chiddingfold and Petworth. All the 10-aside teams had great fun with lots of shouting, cheering and team spirit in play. Again lots of 4’s and 6’s for all the teams. Wisborough Women’s Team looked the part and played like pros, with great fielding including a few dives from Fiona ‘Fluff’ Green and catches by Jen Cambell and Trish Dixon. Wicket balls from Bex Samuelson and Hannah Williams, awesome batting by Ann Wells and Kirsty Dawson. Sam Cookman and Jo Hunter bowled them straight and ‘safe hands’ Sarah Meurer did not let a ball past as Wicket Keeper! Peter Klein, the team’s coach, said ‘it was such a pleasure to watch how far the women’s team have come since the beginning of the season – they played brilliantly’.

**Trish Dixon about to show the ball no mercy as Petworth’s Donna Read looks on helplessly**

**Jo ‘cool as a cumcumber’ Spiers fending the ball away from her stumps**

**Trish Dixon setting up for another big hit. More on this pic later in Wizzy News …**

**Sarah Meuer about to despatch another one to the boundary**

Chiddingfold cleared up on the day winning the U11, U15 and Women’s competitions – so well done to them. However, it was Wisborough who triumphed by turning out competitive squads at all levels in their first year of match play. A special mention to Peter Klein for his unwavering dedication and support across all ages and to Mark Meurer who always makes sure the BBQ is on point and who has also been helping coach the women’s cricket too. Wisborough Green Cricket Club could not have been more supportive and a big thank you to our Barmy Army of supporters, you know who you are!

If you are interested in playing cricket for Wisborough Green Women’s or Girls’ teams then please do get in touch with Sarah Meurer (Whats app 07941104941).

Bring on 2023!

**The Wisborough Lashes celebrating a great day on the cricket field**

Holiday Camps for children aged 4-12

West Chiltington are hosting a number of Holiday Camps for children aged 4-12 from the end of July through to the end of August. They have a great setup and the coaches running the sesssions are highly respected and well know to us. The sessions are all fun based and cater for children of all abilities, so please do send your children along if they are available.

Please contact Tim Van Noort on tel 07734 115 482 for further details

Honours Boards

Congratulations to all those who made it onto our Honours boards this week

Match reports

First X1 vs East Preston

Wisborough 1’s were back on the road and this time with a nice away trip down to the coast and East Preston, with the UK on red alert. A few new pre-match rituals included James Newman dipping in the sea, while Jack Dixon had a nice snooze travelling down from London.

Captain Farmer lost the toss yet again and Wisborough were asked to field in the heat: concentration along with good bowling was required. It was Nick Klein and Will Dixon who were asked to take the new ball, both bowling well – and when hitting the correct lines and lengths caused the openers real issues, but with one short ‘kids’ boundary any bad ball was punished.

The score moved to 27 before the dangerous Weedon was despatched by Will and caught by brother Jack. The next period was all EP, with the ball not doing too much and only one tough chance heading Jack’s way who was still seeing two balls – and Fulham Broadway’s lighting.

It was Joey who made the key breakthrough removing Reeves who had only really scored through the leg side, but who had a lot to say for himself along with his potty mouth. Caught DJ.

It was then a period of superb bowling from Joey that turned the game in Wisborough’s favour at a time when it looked like we would be chasing 220+. He removed the top order with accurate bowling and the score fell to 131/5.

Enter James Newman aka Elmer Fudd who bowled with great pace and tossed the ball up, only for the bunnies to fall into his trap, and with good control he destroyed the tail. The score ended up on 171 with both Joey and Jimmer (James Newman) ending up with 4 wickets (Joey oh so close to his first 5fer). A special mention in the field to Eddie Ragg, fresh off the Ragg biking injury list, who held all four of his catches with a knee the size of his head!

OneStop was visited, and the players were fuelled to take on the chase with Steve and Jimmer the normal opening pairing. Jimmer fresh from his dip and four wickets, was having quite a day, timing the ball beautifully and punishing the bad ball. The score raced to 20 before Steve played a flick down the leg side, only for the ball to clatter into middle.

Ash Clarke and James Newman, the top two run scorers in the league were together, and one loud appeal for Ash early on, lead to quite comical scenes from the EP players, bat onto pad, not out, deal with it. These two continued at a good rate, and Jimmer raced to 50, with the score on 56. Ash played with great control as usual but was dismissed on 20 when one ball got slightly big off a length: 86/2. Matt Watts came and went, and Jack, fresh faced, took the score to 112 before Jimmer finally fell for a fine 70, a great one-handed caught and bowled from the dangerous off spinner Whittaker.

Farmer saw the last few balls off from his spell and then the runs flowed for the rest of the innings, only Jack fell to a rash swipe. Brother Will was sent in instead of Klein, as he claimed the pinch-hitting roll.

East Preston came alive with 40 odd runs required, but Will punished anything into his pads and hit Reeves for a massive six when he thought he could save the day for his side, only to be sent into the village fete. Farmer also started to pick up the pace and the two finished things off with 8 overs to go – and it was done in style as Willbo sent the ball on to the main road over the large net. Job done.

Player of the match again was close, with Joey opening the game with a great spell. But Jimmer Newman takes it with 4 wickets and a destructive 70 to set up the win – well played Sir.

DOD will go to Tom Reeves of EP, constant noise, foul-mouthed and quite frankly not how the game should be played. But yet again put in his place by the Green.

Jonny Farmer

Click here for the full scorecard

Second X1 vs Crawley Eagles

A very odd match!

On a scotching afternoon at Petworth Park Cricket Club the Green, displaced from their home fixture as the groundworks continue, arrived in good spirits to take on Crawley Eagles.
The skipper yet again lost the the toss and the Green were put into bat – the pitch looked hard and flat and the outfield lightening fast – should be a good day out in the middle.
Oscar Warmington with his father Rupert (last played in 1987) opened the batting. Oscar started positively against some good bowling whilst Rupert unfortunately misjudged the ball and left a straight one.
Oscar and Matt Ritchie then begun to start a partnership when Matt was bowled on 9. Juan Vorster came to the crease and Oscar after looking in good form was befuddled by a very short, slow and straight delivery which crept under his bat and he left the field with a respectable 21 runs.
Tarni Dixon and Juan then forged ahead with Juan hitting the ball confidently and elegantly to different corners of the ground. The partnership grew as the bad balls were dispatched and the good balls respected. Juan reached his well deserved 50 and Wisborough were on around 100 for 3 off 24 overs.
The bowling action of the Crawley Eagles Captain has already been noted for its similarity to a chuck – this has been well documented and reviewed. It seems the action becomes more pronounced with his quicker ball and this may have been the undoing of Juan who fell to the same ball having scored a well played 51 runs.
Ollie Warmington came and went quickly after the bowler caught one which came straight back to him.
Tim Dodd strode to the crease and dispatched his first ball, a low full toss, to the boundary effortlessly – a very pleasing start. The plan between Tarni and Tim was to cut out the quick singles and focus on the boundaries. They then spent the next two overs running every ball for a quick single – not quite the plan!
Tarni then decided that he would stick to the plan and threw his bat wildly at a wide delivery hitting the edge and landing in the safe hands of the wicket keeper having scored a scratchy 47
Mick Holland the next in was bowled uncharacteristically after scoring 1. Harry Hunter came in and played some positive looking shots before a lack of communication resulted in an unnecessary run-out with Harry the victim.
Tim was then bowled having scored a quick 24 and the Green were 165 for 8 off 36 overs. Josh Dixon and Darren Hunter were the final pair and soon Darren surcumbed to some straight bowling and the Green ended up with 168 all out after 37.2 overs.
The tactical plan developed over tea and it was clear that we needed to attack and bowl them all out to win the game – we had not scored enough runs on that pitch.
Oscar and Ollie opening the bowling and both beat the bat regulary with some outstanding deliveries – giving both openers more than something to think about.
On the 5th over the circus started. Oscar bowled a peach which hit the batsmen’s pad and the whole team went up – the umpire’s finger rose – the batsmen did not move. The bastmen then started to remonstrate that he hit the ball and was not out. After 5 minutes of unecessary discussion and with the help of his teammates he was escorted off the pitch. Not a good example of how the game should be played. Now lets move on.
Oscar and Ollie both continued to bowl very well and then on the 14th over Ollie bowled another corker which struck the Eagles‘ Captain on the pad. Interestingly hands went into the air and Oscar appealed from the boundary but nothing was heard by the umpire until Tim very clearly asked the question ‚How is that?‘ (the ball at this stage was with extra cover going back to the bowler) and the batsmen was given out. This is when the chaos started with the batsmen refusing to walk on the basis that it was a dead ball and late call. The whole Crawley Eagles team came out in support of the Captain. After 30 minutes of discussion, debate, reference to the rules etc the Captain walked off the field out (if he had not then the match would have been abandoned). An extraordinary situation which again should not have happened – the umpire’s decision is final and we must all support this.
The match continued and Harry Hunter yorked their left handed opener who looked their strongest batsmen and there was a chance we could get back into the game.
Crawley continued to keep the score ticking over so Oscar was brought back on down the hill with Josh up the hill.
Josh got 2 wickets (both LBW) and Oscar a caught and bowled before Crawley won the match with 169 for 6 off 32 overs.
Sadly the game will be remembered for the controversy and the unacceptable behaviour of those challenging the umpire. I cannot help but think that if we could have got another 2 wickets early on we could have won that match. Well done to all the bowlers who gave us an opportunity to win the match.

Tarnie Dixon

Click here for the full scorecard

Team selections

Please click here for our senior team selections for this weekend’s senior games.

Spotted on the Green

Regular readers of Wizzy News may recall that we published an article a couple of years ago about a very unique Wisborough Green trait that you are unlikely to find in any cricket coaching manual. Here is our article about it : http://www.wisboroughgreencc.co.uk/wizzy-news-27-august-2020/

Frank Vickery was at it