PREMIER DIV ROUND-UP WEEK 1
FLYING START MADE BY GREENLEYS' TRIO
The opening week of the new season saw the main title contenders pitched against each other as Greenleys Monarchs hosted holders MK Titians and proceeded to share the spoils in an exciting encounter. World over 60s hard-bat champion Dave Tiplady hit a hat-trick for the home boys with Tomek Nowakowski a brace, leaving Dave Beddall winless. For Titans it was a case of 2 wins from Nick Howard and one each from Crain Brown and new boy Ricky Taiwo (transferring from Greenleys Warriors - no fee involved) plus the vital doubles set. The result hinged on the doubles, as so often is the case in tight matches, with defending champions Titians pulling back a 6-10 final game deficit.
Meanwhile Rickyâs old Warriors team started the campaign with a 9-1 victory over newly promoted MK Topspin. Topspinâs reigning Div 1 âtop 8â champion Jit Pitamber continued his winning ways in his opening set against Shrishlal Basant Rai, but that was his sideâs only success on the night. Hat-tricks here for Darren Ward and Adebola Odetayo with zeros for Russell Penn and Mervyn Kelly.
To complete a strong week for the Greenleys club, their Glory boys team turned over MK Spinners 7-3 with Ian Mead hitting a hat-trick, Iain Lindsay an excellent brace and one from Saish Prabhu plus the doubles. Spinnersâ sets came courtesy of Jecu Aurelian (2) and Div 1 super-sub Sarah Hudson. Gary Jones, often a slow starter, remained winless.
The final scheduled match of the week saw a whitewash victory for Leighton Buzzard Generations over Open University Primes. Hat-tricks all round for Hakan Karaagac, Javier Goh and Alex Du Noyer with zeros for Patrick Wong, Andy Tan and James Zeng.
The Primes team and Topspinâs fellow promotees and have added the very useful Nicolas Wong (ex MK Sasaki) to their squad. He made his debut for his new team the week before in their pre-arranged (week 4 scheduled) match against MK Titans, scoring Primes only success in a 9-1 defeat with a win over Craig. Andy and James also played for Primes and hat-trick men Nick and Ricky turned out for Titans.
But for the mighty Titans already having two matches in the bank, Leighton Buzzard Generations would have enjoyed at least one week in top spot. However they do have the top 3 players in the averages so far (if only based on alphabetical order!). Congratulations!
Player of the week : Dave Tiplady