Batting collapse as Dulwich suffer clear defeat to BoE

BY JOHN LEWIS

A disastrous batting collapse saw Dulwich defeated by 82 runs in their top of the table Surrey Championship Division Two match against Bank of England.

Dulwich travelled to Bank’s new ground at Oberon Playing Fields for the first time, and put the home side in on a very green pitch.

The first half of the innings went very much to plan. Three wickets for skipper Jon Lodwick, two for Simon Harwood, and one each for Nick Gunning and Frankie Brown saw Bank reduced to 76-7 in the 31st over.

But number eight batsman Rory Sale then led a fightback, adding 28 for the eighth wicket with James Woodroof, who made 12 before falling to Alex Gledhill, and 54 for the ninth wicket with Will Weston, who made 18 before giving Gunning his second wicket.

Sale was the last man to fall, giving Lodwick a return catch in the last over, having made 53 off 77 balls. The last three wickets had more than doubled the score to see Bank dismissed for 162.

Lodwick finished with 4-21 off 9.2 overs.

Chris Purshouse and Paul Selvey-Clinton added 24 in six overs for the first wicket in a comfortable partnership that gave no hint of the debacle to come.

Purshouse fell to the first ball of the seventh over and Brown followed four balls later. This started a procession in which nine wickets fell in 22 overs for just 28 runs, to take Dulwich from 24-0 to 52-9.

Skipper Kit Wilder took the first three, and Sale and Woodroof followed up their batting prowess by taking three and two wickets respectively.

A spirited last wicket stand of 28, the highest of the innings, by Gunning and Gledhill lifted the score to 80. Gunning became the second number eight to be top scorer, finishing with 21 not out, while keeper Michael Harms, with 10, was the only other batsman to make double figures.

Dulwich slip to second in the table. They return home this weekend to face joint-fifth Worcester Park, who have won one and lost two of their matches.