Catches Win Matches

Or so the saying goes. And based on our results so far this season that adage could well be true. You see, we haven't won any games so far this season. But we have dropped quite a lot of catches... There's probably some sort of correlation there.

On to the match - only one per week now seeing as we only have the one team - which this week saw Riddlesden travel to Wagon Lane to face Bradford & Bingley 3rds. Having won the toss and elected to field, Riddlesden started strongly, restricting their hosts to a conservative 59-1 at the half way stage. Things were looking promising, but with wickets in hand, Bingley began to take more risks and the score accelerated. Those risks should have hurt their ambitions, but time and again catches (some hard, some straight forward) were spilled, reprieving their batsmen and giving an ever larger score. I think I counted at least seven chances not taken. In the end, B&B ended on 202 - 5, with Shabaz Ahmed scoring 102 of them. Danny Kernan and Mohammad Qadeer bowled very well - Danny picking up one wicket and only conceding 21 runs from his full 12 overs, and Qadeer 3 wickets for 33 runs from his 12.

In response, Riddlesden lost wickets at regular intervals and Bingley, for the most part, held their catches. In addition, two showers dampened the outfield, slowing the ball down, costing us a few runs as shots that would have been boundaries earlier in the day stopped short later. Only Steve Kernan (using Jamie Fullwood's spare bat after his own was stolen in the recent break-in) provided any real hope, scoring 67 excellent runs. Dale Pinkerton looked to be in good form until playing the wrong shot, and Howard Packer and Danny shared an enjoyable last partnership stand to take our score past 150. Unfortunately the win was out of reach and we lost by 48 runs.

Unfortunately, the general feeling was that we had allowed the opposition to score approximately 50 runs more than they would have got had we just held those catches. So by that measure, we could, and probably should have won this game. That we didn't is a shame, and here's hoping everyone brushes up on a little fielding practice this week.