Joy of six for South to avoid relegation (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Joy of six for South to avoid relegation

12:33pm Wednesday 10th September 2008 in

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South Woodford 93-4
Hainault and Clayhall 92-a/o
(Premier League)

SOUTH Woodford avoided the drop after securing a stunning six-wicket victory over Hainault.

The Highfield Road outfit sitting bottom of the table knew that nothing other than a win would do and in one of the few games to actually get played in the Essex League and they stood up to be counted.

Hainault were invited to open the batting and found themselves struggling to adapt to the wet wicket.

Jonathan Evans (12), Mouhssin Ismail (11), Irfan Shah (31) and Ashfaq Ahmed (11) were the only visiting batsman to make double figures.

Slow left-arm bowler Garry Neicho stepped up to deliver with excellent figures of 7-36 from his 19.2 overs, while Pratik Acharya (2-24) provided the main support.

In reply the South batsman also found the conditions difficult to play as wickets were soon sent tumbling, however opener Asher Gilani recorded an undefeated 47 as the hosts came home with six wickets to spare.

And thanks to Chingford’s defeat at Ardleigh Green and Saffron Walden dropping out of the league, South live to fight another season in the Premier League.

Delighted skipper Richard Browne said: “It is great that having won just one game all season we got our second victory when it mattered most.

“The conditions were very difficult, although in fairness Garry Neicho bowled very well once again for us and he really has been one of the few bright points all season.

"Of course we do feel for Chingford because they came so close and we wish them well next season.

“For ourselves we will also need to regroup and hopefully come back a lot stronger next time after learning some very valuable lessons from this season.”