Cricket: Dulwich need to win last two matches to stand any chance of avoiding relegation

BY JOHN LEWIS

Another batting collapse saw Dulwich go down to defeat by six wickets in their Surrey Championship Division 1 clash at Banstead to leave their survival hopes clinging by a thread.

The South Londoners took no points from this game and remain in bottom place. Their next two matches are against the sides immediately above them in the table and they need to win both of them if they are to have a realistic chance of avoiding the drop. The first of these is at home to Old Wimbledonians, who have now dropped to ninth, on Saturday.

Dulwich elected to bat on an extremely hot day, but the innings got off to a frenetic start as openers Ollie Steele and Ollie Sykes went for their shots. They both gave chances before falling for nine and 10 respectively within the first five overs. Skipper Chris Purshouse joined James Schofield with the score on 24 and together they rebuilt the innings, adding 38 in six overs against some innocuous bowling by the seamers. Schofield was the next to go after making 11, unluckily bowled by a straight one in an over that contained six wides. Banstead now turned to their spinners, who immediately found turn and unpredictable bounce, especially from one end. The score had advanced to 75 after 13.2 overs when Purshouse was caught behind for 26, off 29 balls.

This opened the floodgates as the spinners shared six wickets in 13 overs for just 27 runs. Dan Crowley then went on the attack, making 33 off 30 balls and sharing in a last wicket stand of 29 with Jon Lodwick, who remained unbeaten on four. Dulwich were dismissed for 131, leaving 19 of their 50 overs unused.

Dulwich opened the bowling with leg spinner Ahmed Khan, who also got turn and bounce from the danger end. He took the first wicket in his second over and completed his 10 overs for just 18 runs without conceding a boundary.

But with such a low target to aim for the Banstead batsmen were able to treat him with respect while punishing anything loose at the other end. After two overs by Crowley, left-arm spinner Frankie Brown joined the attack and took the next two wickets.

The fourth fell to off spinner Salaar Waqar, who was more expensive, though not all the runs came off the middle of the bat.

Harawal Wassam joined Patrick Rowe with the score on 77-4 in the 19th over and together they knocked off the remaining runs, with Rowe finishing on 47 off 83 balls, and Wassam 31 off 32.