Sunday 18th August 2002 vs Walthamstow Horiztls C.C.
 
‘Horizontals refuse to lie down’
 
Washington C.C. 172-7 (42 overs)
Walthamstow Horiztls C.C. 109-8 (39 overs)
 
Washington played out an eventful draw with the Walthamstow Horizontals on Sunday. Having been asked to bat first, Wash scored 172; at the end, Walthamstow’s Ken Leon (10 not) and Steve Moor (11 not) were left hanging on, ringed by Wash fielders. But the wicket wouldn’t come and a draw it was.

For Wash skipper, playing his last game of the season, it wasn’t quite the end he wanted: ‘Obviously it would have been nice to finish with a win, but full credit to the Horizontals, they never gave it up, and the game was exciting to the end’.

Washington’s innings was a curious affair. Pete Demetri (40) played some great pulls, but Steven Brown (7) attempting a similar shot got one that hit him on the ankle in front of middle stump, and perished lbw. It was that sort of a pitch.

As a consequence wickets fell regularly in the face of Dave Smart’s (2-27) teasing inswingers, and it took a full blooded 41 from Grant MacDonald, making his first appearance of the season, to keep the momentum going. The innings reached a surreal climax in an 8 ball carnival of the grotesque and the bizarre, as Paul Irons (19 not) hit everything and ran everything, to the evident discomfiture of the Horizontals.

If the end of Washington’s innings was extraordinary, the start of Walthamstow’s was equally memorable – particularly for Mark Wittet. In his first five overs he picked up 4 wickets for 0 runs, as the Horizontals slumped to 5-4. The first runs off the bat didn’t arrive until the tenth over.

Yet from this precarious position, the Horizontals hauled themselves back. Opener Scally (20) and Mick Hunt (46) held the innings together, riding the luck that all successful batsmen on this pitch had to have, and punishing anything loose.

They added 81 for the fifth wicket, and it was only when Gurney removed Scally that Washington again glimpsed a victory. Then Nick Tidey, who bowled well without much luck, picked up Hunt, courtesy of an acrobatic catch in the covers from Wittet, and it was game on.

Gurney snaffled two more, but the overs drifted away, the occasional half chance went to ground, and Wash had to settle for a draw when the stumps were drawn. The Horizontals had refused to lie down.

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