This may not be a shock...
At the risk of becoming repetitive, we lost again.
On a far nicer day than had been forecast, Riddlesden won the toss and elected to bowl first. Bob Morrisroe (3-35) and Mohammad Qadeer (0-45) started well, keeping Eldwick & Gilstead in check and building steady pressure with accurate bowling. Around the half way stage, optimism was quite high as it looked likely that we could restrict our opponents to a reasonable total.
Unfortunately, not many wickets had been taken by this point which allowed Eldwick to accelerate in the second half of the innings. Despite three wickets for Danny Kernan, three catches(!) and two run outs (!!) in the latter stages, Eldwick were able to stretch their score to 200-8, with everybody's favourite, Arnold Raistrick, scoring an unbeaten 51.
In response, Riddlesden struggled yet again with the bat. Losing wickets regularly combined with a slow run-rate led to a final score of 93 all out. Dale Pinkerton (36) and Akeel Rashid (23) both looked handy before losing their wickets, but nobody else really troubled the scorers. Jamie Fullwood started looking back in form before some fool mentioned it, immediately causing his demise through the old commentator's curse thing (sorry - I'm a fool!)
On the plus side, the fielding was pretty good again. Catches and run outs, a rarity this season, played a big part this week. Keep improving and maybe we can restrict the opposition to a manageable score. We could do without the aggro that crept into the match again though - two weeks on the trot - we'll be getting a reputation, and not just for losing.
So we still haven't won a match, and to rub salt in the wound, somehow Thornton-in-Craven, our fellow 'unable-to-win-a-game' strugglers somehow managed the impossible, and in the process of winning ruined my lengthy hyphenated description of them. Bah!
This week is away at top of the table Cononley. They've scored more than 200+ five times so far, including 225 against us, and a high score of 295! However, they also have a couple of duff scores, 71 & 77 all out. So here's hoping their on an off day on Saturday...