The 2009 season saw Rayleigh with five teams playing league cricket for the first time. The First team competed in Division 2, the Second team in Division 5, the Third team promoted to Division 8, the Fourth team promoted to Division 10 and the Fifth team were accepted into Division 11 of the T-Rippon League.
The First team started their league season with 2 new signings (Imran Shah and Mike Walsh) and they outplayed all of their league opposition for most of the season. They lead Division 2 all season – only losing a few games when promotion was certain. The League 2 title nearly went down to a nail biting finish – but more of that later. However, the other teams had a more mixed season as you will see.
2009 was also the year that the Rayleigh Women & Girls team made its debut. They combined their forces with Rankins and entered the Beaumont Seymour Essex Women&8217;s Cricket League (South) — a 20 over per side competition and played their matches on a Friday evening.
There were a 6 regular colts teams who also completed all of the their league matches along with a number of friendly games and several of the Colts showed their potential whilst turning out for the adult teams.
April
Not a great start to the season with five friendly matches producing just two wins and three defeats.
May
As usual the first Saturday in May saw the start of the league season with all 5 of our teams in action. A good first day with 4 wins and 1 defeat.
The First team won all their 5 games whilst the Second team lost four of theirs. As in 2008 the Third team started the league season unbeaten but lost the final game of the month against a Writtle team who proceeded to dominate the division all season.
Chris Eldridge scored the first two centuries of the season including 176* against Springfield IIs . Everyone thought this was likely to win the batting cup — but Imran had other ideas. Paul Dudmish also started the season in great style for the Third team with 2 centuries in the first four games to help lay the foundations of the Third team batting displays and to a successful start.
The Fourth team had a very good month ending it unbeaten. But, as happened in 2008, they again ended playing in that cricketing rarity, a tied match. This time it was against the old enemy — Rayleigh Fairview. At least honours were even and so no-one had gained the bragging rights.
The Fifth team lost their first ever league match by 9 wickets but Matt Belcher scored a first 50 for the club to show his promise and then consistently scored throughout the season. Alan Brown also scored a maiden 50 against OCs and then another against Great Wakering.
The Sixth team had taken over a number of hard fixtures from the 5th team and had matches cancelled several times during the season as opponents were unable to raise a team. The team itself was used as a training ground for the U13 and U15 players to begin to get involved in the adult games. Things were tough, but they tried hard all season, enjoyed their games but they lost most of those that they played.
Sunday XI — won 3, drawn 1, lost 1
June
The month started with a clean sweep for all teams and the 1st and 2nd teams carried this on throughout the month. The 3rd, 4th and 5th teams all had a mixed month with as many wins as defeats.
Danny White scored 90 against Bentley IIs, IB took 5 for 37 against Danbury QP and Mike Walsh and Mark Cane shard 8 wickets in a swift win against Great Burstead.
Mike Walsh continued to take 3 or 4 wickets for the 1st team each week as the team continued to dominate the Division 2 table. Steve Adams reached 99, Phil Wolff 97 and Willie Leadbeater 97 as the Second team found out how to score runs, win games, climb away from the bottom of the table but not how to score a century.
The Third team ended the month with two defeats which seemed to end their promotion hopes.
Sunday XI — won 2, lost 1
July
July was a good month for Imran but the First team finally lost a competitive match. Imran not only scored 119 at home to Hockley, but followed up with scores of 188 against Springfield IIs and 132 against Great Baddow in successive weeks.
The 2nds won 3 more games and Steve Adams started to score more runs, 74 and 93 in consecutive weeks, but the team continued to be century-shy while Richard Abley took 5 for 26 against Hullbridge.
The Third team again had mixed fortunes during July, Simon Lennon scoring 96 against Sandon before getting out too ‘tired’ to bat. The Thirds then managed to lose the home game against Burnham after bowling out the opposition for just 118 with Adam Dudmish taking 6 for 30. The batting then forgot how to score runs and made just 89. This proved the difference between promotion and third place.
The Fourth team results matches the Thirds. Inconsistent results meaning that their promotion hopes were also dashed. Some good bowling performances wasted by poor batting.
Sunday XI — won 4 out of 4 !
August
August came around and the Rayleigh Touring Team again packed their bags for the Isle of Wight and four enjoyable matches which produced three wins and one defeat.
And so it came to the penultimate league game. The Third team played away at Aythorpe Roding knowing that victory would give them a good chance of promotion. However Aythorpe also needed to win and strengthened their team and restricted the Thirds to 181 all out. This proved much too small a total to defend and the game was lost with ten overs to spare and the teams ended the day level on points. The last week proved a tough one for the Third team as they easily beat Terling, gain 26 points only to find that Aythorpe had also won with 26 points and were promoted by virtue of winning a greater percentage of completed away games. The rain on the 1st of August proving the difference at the end of a closely fought season.
Meanwhile the First team was still battling for the Division 2 title. They needed to defeat Great Burstead in the last game and restricted them to 175 for 7. This should have been straightforward but they needed Craig Baird to hold the tail together to score 70* and to scrape through by just 1 wicket.
Simon Harwood enjoyed his August batting for the Fourth team. He scored 138* against Bentley in a record score of 323 for 3 (supported by 117 from Tom Osbourn) and then another 137 against South Woodham Ferrers in an even bigger total of 349 for 7. Simon Lennox also scored 100 in this game which ended in a win by 271 runs. The Fourth team then ended the season in fourth place in Division 10 and the Fifth team in 7th place. Matt Belcher continued his good batting form for the Fifths with 94* against Great Wakering and Matt Williams ended with scores of 130, 89 and 83 as the team finished the season with a flourish.
Sunday XI — won 1, lost 3
The final team placings were
- First team were Champions in Division 2
- Second team were 4th in Division 5
- Third team were 3rd in Division 8
- Fourth team ended 4th in Division 10
- Fifth team ended 7th in Division 11
September
The First team played four friendlies in September but without much success winning just once against Hornchurch. The Fourth and Fifth teams ended their season with good friendly wins against Eastwood and the Third team played a hugely interesting timed game with a weakened team against Ardleigh Green which ended in a draw – with four runs needed and only a stunning catch at extra cover to dismiss Ray Winney as he was going for the winning runs standing between the Thirds and a good win. The Second team then completed a 9 wicket win the next week at home over the same opposition.
Sunday XI — won 2, lost 1