Sunshine and victory

Finally the sun shone and we managed to get a game of cricket in yesterday. However the joy was tempered early on by the fact that today's game had been cancelled already, giving our title rivals Thornton more cause to celebrate since we only take 4 points from the No Result and is why I'm sat here typing instead of warming up to play again!

Anyway back to yesterday's match, the Wareing Trophy Quarter Final versus Fleetwood IV. We found Cottam in amazingly good condition considering all the rain. The outfield was very soggy with puddles everywhere, but with the sun shining and the breeze blowing, the sqaure was drying very quickly, leaving a crusty surface and a soft interior. An easy call to make on winning the toss with Captain Rawcliffe electing to field. With a short run up I got through my 8 over spell very tightly and should have had a couple of wickets had it not been for errant catching, especially from my younger brother Andrew on debut (filling in for our severely depleted team)! Another amusing incident in the first over with an easy run out chance being missed. A suicide single meant an easy opportunity, but Andy had knicked the wickets with his pad before receiving the ball, so I had to scream "pull it out, pull it out" to remove the stump and complete the run out. Our celebrations were short lived as it transpired that while he had pulled the stump out, he had forgotten to touch it with the ball in his other hand, disaster! We managed to field well in tough conditions and bowled Fleetwood out for 81 with a few overs of their alloted 40 left.

Amos and Hindle went about the task of chasing down the small target knowing conditions were far from easy. Fleetwood had only managed 1 boundary in their total. Amos was instructed to nurdle it around by the Captain, so promptly saw off the first few overs before charging around and smashing the ball to all parts! A quickfire 24 got us on our way but a small collapse left us needing 40 with myself and the Captain at the crease. The bowlers were being changed constantly to keep us on our toes and with the pitch taking spin it was imperitive to get ourselves in before taking on the bowling, especially with our potentially weak tail end. Even though a few more wickets fell (Kenny most amusingly, succumbing to the sledging from the slips with only 4 runs required!), I managed to stick around ending on 16* with Scott and finish off the chase, getting us to 82/5. So into the Semi Finals next Sunday after our crunch league game against Thornton IV on Saturday at Cottam. With our No Results putting us on the back foot this is now a massive game, and even if we win we will still not be able to overtake them in the league unless other teams do some damage to them. It could be a tight finish to the season...