On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, the Men's 1st XI opened their league campaign with a win in a closely contested game against Tilford 2nd XI. There was a huge performance from a Pirbright legend and stellar contributions from two U14 boys stepping into men's cricket.

Skipper, James Thompson, did what he does best and lost the toss and Tilford stuck Pirbright into bat. Thompson and Howe opened the batting against a consistent and accurate Tilford opening attack. Despite the excellent bowling of Matthews and Windsor, the Pirbright openers remained at the crease. At the midway point Pirbright found themselves 73-0 from 22 overs, with a platform laid and a need to push the scoring rate to get to a competitive score. In the second half of the innings, Thompson and Howe accelerated the scoring, finding the boundary with greater regularity. Thompson was the first to fall for 82 with the score at 148. Lindberg and White followed quickly as they looked to push on the score. Burditt and Howe kicked on before Howe fell for an excellent 70. The middle order continued to contribute as Burditt, Flanegan, Luke Evans and Omar Khan pushed the score onto 223/6 at the end of the innings. Martin Knott finished with excellent figures of 9-3-34-3.

Tilford made a rapid start to their innings with opener Fuller punishing anything which was overpitched. The introduction of Burditt brought the first breakthrough as he has Fuller caught by an excellent, tumbling catch from Robbie White to leave Tilford 49/1. Burditt and Lindberg then wrestled control back for Pirbright with a spell of accurate bowling bringing down the Tilford run rate. Following his 70, Howe then came on from the Woods End and bowled excellently, keeping the runs down whilst regularly picking up wickets. He was ably supported from the Milton End by Oliver Evans and Sam Powell. Both boys stepped up from youth cricket to bowl excellently in a pressure situation and keep the pressure on the Tilford batters. Khan and Millette returned to bowl the death overs leaving Tilford 15 runs short of their target on 208/8. Tilford's number 3, Ben Stearn, compiled a composed 80 not out, but wasn't able to get his team over the line.

A great start to the season. Rupert Howe with a man of the match performance with 70 runs and 4 wickets starting the season superbly. A big thank you to Tilford 2nd XI for an excellent game, played throughout in good spirits. It was also brilliant to have a great deal of support in the pavilion and I would encourage all club members to feel welcome to come down to support and have a drink down at the ground when we are at home. Next week we have a trip away to Haslemere CC and hope to build on the great start of this week.