The 1st team enjoyed a successful weekend of cricket with two excellent victories. On Saturday the day got off to a bad start with traffic delaying our arrival at the ground by more than an hour. The whole team made it to Northop with 15 minutes to spare which obviously wasn’t the greatest preparation!
We lost the toss and after 14 overs things weren’t looking good with the Northop openers cruising to 60 without loss. Fortunately our bowling attack seems to have developed patience and a never say die attitude that could prove crucial in coming weeks. The Northop batting line up had there minds solely on survival and very rarely looked to score with Simon Kerrigan, Nicky Caunce and Gavin Griffiths all bowling extremely economically. Gavin and Nicky were rewarded for their perseverance with 4 wickets apiece. The bowlers deserve great credit for sticking to their task on an extremely flat wicket with Northop declaring their innings on 170-9 after 68.5 overs!
In reply the chase stuttered somewhat with Matty Glayzer, Andy Ford and Johnny Armstrong all being dismissed relatively cheaply (the latter two may feel themselves somewhat unfortunate to be given out LBW).
Simon Kerrigan (14) and Nicky Caunce (20) helped turn the game our way as we passed Northop’s total after just 35 overs. I ended unbeaten on 79 which was a big relief after a suffering from a poor start to the league season personally.
This gave us confidence going into the National KO fixture aginst Bradshaw. Despite one or two players feeling the strain after a certain fast bowler’s 21st birthday party on Saturday night we played some good cricket throughout the day in a closely fought contest. Bating first on a lively pitch we plugged our way to 174-6 after 45 overs with Johnny A returning to good form with 53 and Ian Glayzer contributing once again with 31.
Bradshaw got off to a flying start with opener Johnson hitting Nicky for three big sixes in the opening overs. At 40-0 things looked bleak but once again Chris Smith provided the wicket to get us kick-started by removing the dangerous Johnson for 25.
Wickets fell regularly after that and Bradshaw were all out for 145. Nicky took 1-45, Gavin 2-20, Clewsy 2-26 and myself 2-25. Chris was the pick of the bowlers with 3-24.
The victory has set up an area Semi Final against St. Anne’s who defeated us earlier in the season in the Lancashire KO (hopefully there will be no repeat performance!)