4tf XI Victorious against North East Cheshire

It was a good day for cricket. Cool overcast conditions with perhaps the slightest treat of rain. The wicket looked a good one so all to play for.

Timperley won the toss and elected to field, much to the chagrin of some of the team. The captains decision looked right as Pushka & Waz stuck to task and made the NE Cheshire openers work for every run, bowling 7 maidens out of the first 10 sent down. Waz was the only wicket taker though, getting an Lbw against Burgess to make it 23 for 1.

The quality of the bowling did not drop through the innings and the NE Cheshire batters found it hard to score fluently. Welsby played patiently for his 38 (off 78 balls) before being bowled by Haroon and Parkinson at 4 looked comfortable throughout his innings before holing out at mid off, 1 short of a half century. Some sharp fielding from Push (1 run out and a diving forward catch at cover to clasp the ball off the grass top) assisted the bowlers and NE Cheshire concluded at an under par 148 for 8. The pick of the bowling being provided by Krishna with 4 for 24. Stu Cupski Cummings having a decent shift with the gloves on debut (move over Fisher...).

In reply Timperley started positively and Zain & Billy looked comfortable against the Cheshire opening attack and took the score to 39 off 6 overs before Billy played the first of many poorly executed shots by Timperley batters to get out for 10. Satya replaced him and grew in confidence the longer he played (although he does seem to want to run somebody out every time I watch him bat). He fell caught at slip for a dozen. Zain batted well and hit 7 4's & 2 6's in 52 before falling to the slow left arm round spin of Burgess who rattled all who faced him. He troubled all that faced him and he took a well bowled 2 for 19 off 10. On Zains dismissal the middle order had a bit of a brain freeze and succeeded in getting out in some spectacularly poor ways when only some sensible batting was needed to win the game. Stu, Waz, Gary & Tayyab will hopefully make bowlers work harder for their wickets later in the season.

It looked tricky with 25 still needed with Push & Haroon at the crease. The captain lacked faith and thought both would emulate some of the poor play earlier to leave the boy Cross having to come in and club the winning runs. How wrong he was as both stole singles and punished the bad ball to claim about a dozen each to win the game with 2 wickets & 6 overs to spare, much to the joy of the rest of the team and some of the 2nd XI who had come round to watch.

A great turn around from last week won by a superb effort in the field. Onwards and up...