George takes the Pirates to the treasure (=points)

Arriving at St Albans Road with only 10 overs of the match remaining, it was nonetheless still in time to see the match unfold as the visitors Purley were 106-3 after 30 overs needing 66 more runs to overtake the Pirates score of 171-8.
The Pirates had earlier posted 171-8 with the top order of Chris Mallows (19), Andrew Hook (24) and Chris Bates (18), providing the early runs before Ross Gurbutt (43) and Supathi Panchal’s (23) 50 partnership together with George McLoughlin (17) and Manoj Rajarethinam (17) scored the bulk of the rest.

Manoj took 2 of the early wickets (8-019-2); both bowled and included that of visiting Captain Alan Thake who had scored 41 of his team’s first 58 runs. The other early wicket fell to George McLoughlin; also bowled.

Sumair Qasim (8-1-17-0), Jack Sadler (4-0-11-0) and TJ Cossey (4-0-26-0) all kept the Purley chase behind the clock but it wasn’t until the 33rd over that the game began to turn in favour of the Pirates as Supathi took a sharp caught and bowled to dismiss Nick Hunt (35) and next ball bowled George Lee (0) and Purley were 113-4 then 113-5 with Supathi’s figures (8-1-39-2).

More wickets as George Mcloughlin returned for a 2nd spell to bowl the 36th over when he found the edge for Matthew Wickham to take the catch to dismiss Dan Hall (16) to leave Purley at 126-6. George’s next over (the 38th) saw Sumair take a catch to dismiss Adam Drew (12) for 137-7 then 2 balls later George clean bowled Ollie Leslie (0) for Purley to be 137-8; and on 139 with just 2 overs left and still needing 33 more; the game looked all but won for the Pirates.

BUT a hiccup in the 39th over when Purley scored 17 of the required 33 meant a repeat in the last over would deprive the Pirates of a win.
The captain passes the ball for the last over to young George McLoughlin and second ball in Michael Thake (24) smashes the ball to cow corner where it rests in the safe hands of Manoj and Purley were 158-9. Just 1 run from the next 3 balls and the Pirates were home and dry but George wasn’t finished and took the last wicket with the last ball of the match to see Purley all out on 159 and finish his own remarkable 2nd spell (3-0-10-5) for overall figures of ( 7-0-22-6).