Amersham visited NPL Teddington in division 1 of the Thames Valley League last Saturday. Having won the toss the visitors pursued their usual policy of batting first. After 12 overs this appeared to have backfired slightly as four wickets had fallen while 60 runs were garnered. A mixture of good bowling, one case of bad luck and one piece of injudicious shot selection accounted for four batsmen. However, this brought Dan Colquhoun and Luke Jackson together for an enjoyable partnership of 123, scored in only 21 overs. Colquhoun (68) was dismissive of anything removed from a good length. Two drives carried the boundaries on the full and he added 10 fours to these two 6s. He was dismissed courtesy of a sharp catch at backward square leg off another full blooded shot. Jackson (67) was subtler in his approach, but no less rapid in his scoring. Two drives for four, one off the back foot and one off the front foot, through the covers off consecutive balls were particularly memorable, and his running between the wickets kept the score ticking over when boundaries were not available. After this major partnership was broken Chris Owen (25) kept the score moving upwards and past 200, but the icing on the cake was provided by Peter Jupp whose unbeaten 44 led Amersham to a dominant position.

After tea Amersham chose to begin their attempt to win the game with spin from both ends. This brought immediate rewards as Matt Ash dismissed both Teddington's openers in identical fashion, caught by Matt Crawley at slip. The removal of these dangerous batsmen (Churchman and Laghari) was happy news for Amersham since from this point victory looked beyond the home side, but Richard Royce (66) and Chris Binney (29*) provided stubborn resistance. Happily, Matt Crawley uprooted Royce's leg stump and repeated the trick to take the 9th wicket in the last over. However, four balls were not enough to dislodge the final Teddington batsman and the game was drawn. Matt Ash bowled particularly well finishing with figures of 4-46, but a number of dropped catches and narrowly missed half chances counted against Amersham.

On Saturday Amersham entertain North Maidenhead at Shardeloes as the season reaches its climax. At present there is only one point between the two sides, lying in third and fourth in the league.