Seren Waters on his way to 136*

The 2007 week was one of the best in recent years with four wins, all by good margins, one defeat and a winning draw at Charterhouse. What was most heartening was the age of the sides. Most days we had the majority of the team under 23 and the youngsters provided signs of remarkable talent.

Seren Waters and Alan Cope, both under 20, scored memorable hundreds, Matt Crump bowled well and Stuart Meaker showed the class that has been apparent with both bat and ball. Several others, such as Jumbo Jupp, made useful contributions. Dane Groenveld, back from Australia for the holidays, batted with great success, while the old guard, in the form of Michael Chetwode, Graham Webb, Simon Copleston and Henry Watkinson, showed they still have plenty to offer.

Old Cranleighans 80 for 4 (Meaker 50*) beat Esher 79 (Webb 3-3, Craven 2-11, Prince 2-6) by six wickets
The cricket week got off to a disappointing start in a match which lasted less time that the Wimbledon men’s final taking place at the same time. In short, Eton were a mess. At the start time they had seven men on the ground – their captain did not turn up until an hour into the game – and so had little choice but to bat on winning the toss. Their problems were also confounded by the fact that four of their side appeared to be non cricketers. It was shame as we fielded one of the strongest teams we have ever put out.

Dane Groenfeld hammers a four on his way to a hundred against Georgians

Neither side had keepers’ kit and so Stuart Meaker started behind the stumps with batting gloves and Under-14 wicketkeeping pads. Only two Eton batsmen looked equal to the task but at 42 for 2 they seemed to be coping fairly well, but by lunch they had lurched to 70 for 5. After the interval it took Graham Webb and Eds Copleston eight overs to polish off the innings. The only issue was how long it would take us to knock off the runs, and with Meaker in no mood to much around, it was 55 minutes. Simon Copleston, back from the Middle East for the week, feel cheaply as did Webb, bumped up to No. 4, but otherwise it plain sailing. We were in the Red Lion by 4pm and some of the old guard were still there nine hours later.

Old Cranleighans 165 (Langmead 47, S Copleston 41, Hughes 4-47, Thomas 4-26) lost to Grasshoppers 182 (Cooper 77, Henderson 4-30, Chetwode 3-35) by 17 runs
In a summer blighted by almost incessant rain this was the only match of the main part of the week affected. The start was delayed by showers amid sunshine, and another heavier downpour led to an early lunch. After the resumption Michael Chetwode and Ed Henderson, the latter only just back from a sojourn abroad he started while on tour with us in India, used the conditions well to reduce Grasshoppers to 73 for 5. Cooper, aided by the lower order, battled well and his 77 enabled Grasshoppers to reach 182.

Simon Copleston and Tim Payne gave us a solid start but from 41 for 1 we lost our way and when Thomas removed Jumbo Jupp for his fourth wicket we were 110 for 6. Sam Langmead and Henry Watkinson arrested the slide before Hughes turned the game on its head with a hat-trick, Watkinson caught down the leg side off a bouncer and then Chetwode and Richard Seeckts clean bowled. Langmead and Henderson provided the last twist, scrambling the score to 165 before Hughes secured Grasshoppers’ victory by bowling Langmead. The evening finished in Harpers where, as tradition dictates, the Copleston brothers were thrown out.

Seren Waters gives his one chance on his way to his hundred

Old Cranleighans 264 for 0 (Waters 136*, Groenveld 106*) beat Old Georgians 263 (A Houston 3-33, Waters 3-65) by ten wickets
This was one of the most remarkable matches seen on Jubilee. The end result was scarcely credible, and Seren Waters’ innings, his second hundred for the club, was a masterclass in timing, placement and strokeplay. It is hard to believe that he is still only 17.

Georgians batted perfectly well, and most of their batsmen got set without going on to pass fifty. They suffered a setback when an unnamed player – suffice to say he was an Australian pro with a Surrey club – decided at lunch that this was the time to see if his allergy to prawns had worn off. Not wishing to do things by halves, he consumed two plates of Bryony’s finest Norwegian prawns before being reduced to a quivering shell and was last seen being carted off to hospital by Brian O’ Gorman.

Waters and Dane Groenveld batted in totally contrasting styles. Everything Waters does is effortless, punching the ball off back and front foot with sublime timing and seizing on anything remotely short. He milked the gaps, and was happy to push singles when the field was set back to try to contain. Groenveld is Australian and that shows in his batting, with defence almost an anathema, and anything slightly wide or short is treated as if it simply has to be dispatched as far as possible.

The records tumbled. The 81-year-old opening stand of 183 was the first to go, and then the 23-year-old all-time record of 236 was surpassed in a flurry of fours. Groenveld had his moments of luck, dropped five times, four of them by a keeper reputed to have a Minor Counties contract. Waters was reprieved once when on 95 in odd circumstances. Georgians put in three short extra covers and Waters hit the next ball gently to them where a simple catch was spilt. The next ball was caressed through midwicket and the chance had gone.

Alan Cope on his way to 149 against Centurbury

Old Cranleighans 260 for 5 (Cope 149, S Copleston 61) beat King’s Canterbury Old Boys 160 (Bruce 55, Webb 5-50) by 100 runs
This was our second meeting against Canterbury – we had beaten them easily in the first round of the Cricket World Trophy five weeks earlier – and the outcome was another win. It was another teenager who dominated the batting, Alan Cope scoring his second hundred, and his first in this country. For a time it seemed as if Cope would struggle to find someone to keep the other end ticking over, but Simon Copleston provided the foil in a fourth-wicket stand of 139. For a period before lunch the innings became becalmed, but after the interval runs flowed and Andy Houston provided some late fireworks. But it was Cope, quick on anything short, a powerful driver and excellent improviser, who dominated.

Canterbury may not have been happy with the declaration – as it was, they would have faced 54 overs to our 60 – and they showed only fleeting signs of chasing the target, even when offered some friendly bowling early in the final 20 overs. At 102 for 1 with 32 overs remaining the asking rate was under five an over. But a dubious leg-before decision in Webb’s favour triggered a slow collapse and Canterbury lost interest. Webb, making a welcome return to the fold and in his 30th season with the club, whirled away with an unchanged action (and waistline, a rare thing among ageing OCs) to take his 12th five-for with all the guile of old. With Canterbury stubbornly holding on, Cope, fast and intimidating, came back at the top end and ended Bremner’s resistance with two short ones followed by a Yorker.

A remarkable caught-and-bowled from Michael Chetwode

Old Cranleighans 254 (Groenveld 91, Meaker 40, Young 4-55) drew with Charterhouse Friars 191 for 8 (Hooper 51, Webb 3-38, Chetwode 3-28)
A dull day with intermittent showers – but none heavy enough to send the players from the field – started with us losing both openers inside 15 minutes but Groenveld built on his hundred two days earlier to play another crucial – and belligerent – innings, and Meaker chipped in with a breezy 40 as , for once, even the tail boosted the score to a defendable total. Charterhouse cruised to 122 for 1 and appeared on course for an easy win when Meaker struck twice in his second spell and then the forty-something pair of Webb and Chetwode blew through the innings. Chetwode took a remarkable caught-and-bowled low to his left, but in the end we ran out of time as a deluge was immediately followed by sunshine. A surreal end to a topsy-turvey day.

Old Cranleighans 223 for 8 (Cope 81, Groenveld 43, Bugge 5-61) beat Old Tonbridgians 222 for 9 (Hill 84, Crump 6-39) by two wickets
A shortened game – we requested a 5.30pm finish as a mega-BBQ was planned at the Copes – produced the closest match of the week. Tonbridge recovered from an early brace from Henderson – and a Graham Brown slip catch of a no-ball from Watkinson’s first ball - but when Matt Crump replaced the parsimonious Watkinson he changed the match with 3 for 1 in four overs to leave the visitors on 62 for 5. Lunch seemed to have the effect of sending us to sleep and the post-interval hour was about as bad as it got all week with poor fielding and distinctly average bowling. Crump returned to end a sixth-wicket stand of 125 and added another two wickets to finish with the best bowling figures of the week.

Stuart Meaker just fails to hold on to a chance in the final overs at Charterhouse

Groenveld, in the form of his life, attacked from the start and it took the son of an OC – Ed Bugge – to cut him off in full flow, and Bugge added a more circumspect Damian Hill on the stroke of tea. Cope then took up the cudgels, aided by Chris Porter, and the pair hit out, forcing Peter Kemp, Tonbridge’s captain but on home soil, to defend. Cope failed to get much support after Porter’s dismissal, but at 151 for 4 we still had overs in hand, B y the time Bugge senior was bowled by his son, we were still in charge, but Cope falling to a leg-side catch attempting a leg glance caused a few jitters. In 11 balls we had lost two wickets and not scored a run. But Jupp eased the nerves with a four and then Brown straight drove the winnings runs with ten balls remaining.

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