A FIRST King’s Road century for Dean ‘The Don’ Aldridge was not enough to give the Orange Caps a win to end their season on a high.

The classy 104, the second century scored by The Road, helped the team to a first innings total of 213 on their trip to the South Coast to take on Orange Cap Mark Isham’s old club Ferring CC.

King’s Road’s innings got off to the worst possible start, with opener David Hughes – perhaps exhausted from the drive or former skipper Raju Mazumder’s birthday celebrations the night before – attempted to slog the very first ball to the invitingly short boundary but succeeded only in finding mid off’s hands.

This brought Dean in earlier than he might have hoped, and together with Mark the pair were put under pressure from some tight bowling by Ferring’s new ball bowlers.

By the time Mark was out, caught for 6, the Road had managed just 20 from 8 overs.
Skipper Giles Fagan went out and succeeded in increasing the tempo of the innings, hitting three fours including a wonderfully impetuous uppercut/lucky edge over the slip cordon (delete according to whether you believe his modest claim he wasn’t attempting the cheeky shot) before holing out for 12.

Dan Sherman, who was surprised to find his cousin in the crowd (and supporting the opposition), joined Dean for one of the Road’s all-time great batting displays.

In a partnership of 151, Dan racked up 74 including four consecutive fours in one merciless over.

The Ferring bowlers were dispatched by Dan and Dean, who helped make up for the slow start to the innings by repeatedly sending the ball to the boundary or sailing high over it.

Once Dan was finally out the innings was almost over, with Dean following him back to the pavilion shortly afterwards as a result of attempting a suicidal single.

Jamie Keating and Matt Cocken had only a short time to make their mark, but ran hard to keep the runs coming – even taking byes when the ball went straight into the keeper’s gloves.

A total of 213* off 35 overs seemed impressive – but with a very short boundary and local knowledge Ferring seemed confident about taking it on.

An early breakthrough by pace ace Matt Glover, whose slightly overpitched yorker demolished opener Harris’ stumps, proved to be a false dawn as Ferring put on 60 for the second wicket.

The partnership was broken with the introduction of Jamie’s spin, with Paterson well caught by Sham da Silva off his first ball.

Spin also accounted for Ferring’s number four Hemingway, for whom the bell tolled when he was stumped by Giles off the bowling of local boy Mark.

But this only brought Robson to the crease, who sent his first ball for six and rarely let an opportunity to attack go by on his way to an unbeaten 86, while opener Miller finished not out on 87.

The Road’s bowlers – despite the triple Matt attack of Glover, Small and Cocken – were unable to take the wickets necessary to slow the run rate, with blustery conditions making fielding difficult.

Batting hero Dan did well to get a hand to a sharp chance in the gully and was then bewildered as the tail end of Hurricane Katia played havoc with the ball as he attempted to catch a ball hit high into the deep.

Glover finished with figures of 1-27, but deserved more wickets after finding pace and bounce in the pitch.

Small, bowling into the wind, finished on 0-48; Sham finished 0-22, Jamie 1-22, Mark 1-60, Matt C 1-23 and Amir only bowled two balls as the winning runs were hit off him.

Despite the result, Ferring were great hosts – laying on a wonderful tea and then taking us to a nearby pub after the game for chips and sandwiches – and the Road can be proud of their efforts on this first trip to West Sussex.

*The scorecard and Giles’ iPad totals do not entirely agree. David was clearly having a bad day with both bat and scorer’s pencil.