Stirlands and Pagham end season with a run feast

Stirlands elected to bat first and after Peter Cotterill (1-17) dismissed Stuart Hanks, a 179-run partnership between Sean Heather (105) and William Gubbins (86) put them in control.

Only Sean Rutter (2-60), who has been a nemesis to some of the league’s top batsman all year, could trouble the batsman regularly.

Nick Hunt (52*) reached 50 from 26 balls and Stirlands finished with 276 for four.

Pagham wobbled to 13 for three with key bat Wayne Green back in the pavilion, but this only hastened Stuart Rutter’s (76) arrival to the crease. He and Kejel Tyson (90) put on 137 together at just under a run a ball. No-one then played the big innings required to get Pagham over the line - there were only brief flurries from Sean Rutter (18) and Billy Turner Hogg (25*), the major assistors in getting Pagham to 240.

Chris May (4-60) and Struan Cameron (4-62) did the majority of the damage for Stirlands, who won by 36 runs.

Pagham can take a lot of credit from this season with a finishing position of sixth.

With a lot of youngsters having had their first season in first XI cricket plus new recruits emerging for the 2013 season, expectations will be high for next season.

Stirlands had a steady summer too – they were on the fringes of the promotion race until a month out and can look forward to another good challenge next year.