Surbiton beat Bowdon 4-3

[<<] [>>] by Samir Patel at Surbiton Croquet Club
26th September 2010 (AC - Inter-Club)

Bowdon got off with a flying start with a +26 "no-croquet" win by Ken Cooper over Chris Farthing. They looked to be in control of the doubles too, but an error from David Walters gave Samir Patel and Patrick Hort the innings for the first time in the match, and two turns later it was all over. That levelled the match score left Kevin Carter and Steve Lewis to fight over the final morning point. Steve had one peel of an STP before pegging out Kevin to leave penult and peg against 4-back and peg. Kevin hit, and embarked on a 2-ball break only to fail rover to a somewhat unfortunate position (allowing Steve to join up wired leaving no shot) and that was that.

Samir Patel & Patrick Hort beat David Walters & Colin Irwin +16tp(P)
Chris Farthing lost to Ken Cooper -26
Kevin Carter lost to Steve Lewis -3

Surbiton 1 - 2 Bowdon

After an excellent lamb curry, play resumed with three quick games. Samir was on track for a 6th turn 26tp, before a random error saw him stuck in hoop 5 despite approaching from a foot straight in front. However, David couldn't make progress and Samir finished the "triple". Patrick, double-banking on the same lawn, was more clinical with a tidy 26tp over Colin. Chris continued his "no croquet" day, losing 26tp to Steve Lewis, with an excellent rush to in front of 4-back after hoop 6 to get his TP started.

Samir Patel beat David Walters +26
Patrick Hort beat Colin Irwin +26tp
Chris Farthing lost to Steve Lewis -26tp

That left the scores at 3-3, and once again we were watching Kevin, this time against Ken. Ken had had all of the game to that point, and was for 4-back and Peg, with Kevin yet to score. However, an error after penult on his winning break gave Kevin the innings and an excellent stroke turned that into a break. Two missed lifts by Ken later (both with Ken's peg ball) and Kevin was running a 3-ball break from 4-back to peg to win. We'd been there in the morning, but this time the error came earlier - at penult, but was fortunate (from Surbiton's perspective at least) to do so to a wired position. Ken took his 10-yard lift at that ball (for a trivial finish), but missed, leaving Kevin to finish a with a tight win over Bowdon, and putting Surbiton into the final.

Kevin Carter beat Ken Cooper +3

Surbiton 4 - 3 Bowdon