Bolton Abbey Match Report

Scorecard

Despite ominous rain clouds, a pre match shower and the opinion of most of the team, on winning the toss the skipper decided to bat first. Rain duly arrived during the second over, however we were off for less than 10 minutes and lost just one over.

The newly returned Greg Crossley and Robbie Andonovski opened the batting, and cognisant of the threat of rain were given an instruction to bat positively. Greg overcame a slightly rusty start to make a quickfire 30, before spooning a leading edge to the keeper (44-1). Robbie was unfortunate to follow five overs later for 19, when he appeared to hit a ball that kept low but was given LBW (62-2). Lee Sadique and Steve Lawrence batted well together before a heavier rain shower reduced the game by two more overs (so a 42 over game) with the score on 75-2 after 21 overs.

On resumption, the pitch was noticably more difficult to bat on, with timing the ball impossible and the ball beginning to take chunks out of the wet wicket. In fact, given the amount of rain the pitch had experienced in the previous two days and the amount of rain that fell on the day, it was a testament to the efforts of those who work on the ground to even get a game at all.

Lee fell for a well made 27 (86-3) and Steve was caught at deep midwicket for 11 - despite it at first appearing that the fielder hadn't picked up the ball, then misjudging the flight of the ball before making a brilliant recovery to take the catch over his head (96-4). Tom Scott-Smith hit his trademark six before playing round a straight ball (100-5). So with 13 overs to go, the skipper and Shaun Marshall came together and looked to accelerate the scoring rate. Shaun hit a rapid 11 before mistiming an aggressive stroke and the skipper followed soon after, bowled going for a big hit for 16 by the parsimonious Andrew Pickersgill, who took 12-4-25-4 (133-7). Chronic, Richard Bradley and Leon Peachey each added 6 runs, before Chronic was bowled and Leon was run out on the penultimate ball of the last over, taking the score to 154-9 from the allotted 42 overs.

A reasonable rule of thumb is to treble the score at half way for an estimate of the final score - so ordinarily our half time score of 75-2 should have translated to a score of over 200, but that rain had really spiced up the pitch and made it very difficult to bat on, and ultimately our total looked pretty g00d.

However, Robbie Andonovski struggled on the damp surface to gain any grip and managed only two expensive overs before being replaced by Shaun Marshall. Mark Peachey induced an edge from Kevin Holme, Bolton Abbey's free scoring opener, which Steve Lawrence took at first slip (22-1) before some tight bowling from Shaun and Peachey built sufficient pressure to make Phil Midgley skew Mark Peachey to the skipper at cover (23-2). Shaun's first spell figures read 5-3-8-0 - which served to increase the required rate and build further pressure on Bolton Abbey - before being replaced by Lee Sadique for his first bowl for Dacre.

Peachey was bowling well - beating the bat at will and deservedly took a third wicket when bowling Rob Mayo for 5 (51-3), before Lee took his first wicket for Dacre - Dave Burton (22) skewing a drive to the skipper at cover. Dan Parkinson was then run out by a combination of the skipper, Brads and Lee Sadique in a mix-up over a second run, and Bolton Abbey had collapsed to 55-5 after 22 overs. Lee continued to bowl well - bowling through for figures of 12-1-30-4, and Mark Peachey came back to finish his spell and took another wicket to finish with 12-5-20-4.

With Bolton Abbey on 112-9 and 6 overs to take the final wicket to complete the victory, the hitherto much improved fielding took a turn for the worse. Robbie couldn't quite get his fingers under a difficult diving chance off Shaun Marshall to win the game, and Tom Scott-Smith dropped a sitter at square leg. Tom claimed he didn't pick up the ball in the fading light, but no such excuse could be given for the wild throw that followed the drop, missing a simple run out chance.

With Shaun struggling somewhat with his radar, the skipper decided to bowl the last over from the Pavilion End himself. However Steve Lawrence having seen the skipper bowl previously, decided that knee injury or no knee injury he wasn't going to put up with the embarassment and ripped the ball out of the skipper's hands and bowled it himself. Unfortunately, no wicket was forthcoming and Bolton Abbey finished on 124-9 and earned their point.

So a first victory of the season and a good team effort - runs were shared around, the fielding was improved and bowling was excellent. Onwards to Alne next week!