No Thorntons Chocolates

All good things come to an end, but it was a shame that Riddlesden's winning streak had to end so soon and in such devastatingly poor fashion. Just as it looked like we could haul ourselves out of the relegation zone, we managed to put in the second worst performance of the season. The worst of course being against Sandy Lane...

Having won the toss at Thornton's pleasant, quiet little ground, Riddlesden elected to field first. Thornton's main weapon is Kevin Pollard - if he's dismissed early they score low, if he scores over fifty they set competitive targets. He opened and stayed put for most of the innings, finally out to a good catch by Zain Naeem for 64. Oh dear. Nobody else scored particularly highly, but some late runs gave a healthy but not unsurmountable score of 148-6. Very little was hit in the air, with only two catches taken (Akeel got the other). None of the bowlers shone, but none were particularly ineffective - it was just an average sort of score all round.

Then came our batting... It was similar to Sandy Lane. First wicket fell on two runs. As did the second. Then the third fell with the score on nine, and about 8 overs had been bowled by this point. At least Mohammad Shahnawaz gave the score line a boost with his typical approach of simply hitting every ball out of the park. Amidst his blitz we lost our fourth wicket. This brought Steve Kernan to the crease and we had the pair that hit a ninety stand just two weeks ago together again. Could they repeat that feat? No, a slice to gully cost Shanny his wicket on after a quick-fire 31, then Steve was out immediately after to a carbon copy for nought. Ibrar stabilised things briefly with a well constructed 12, but the last four wickets fell for 21 runs and we were all out for just 73. We gave away 8 catches!

I guess Thornton had home advantage and knew how to play the conditions, but we should have been better than that. They had two players drafted in to make up numbers, we had an almost full strength side. They played along the ground, we played in the air. They caught everything, to be fair so did we - just there wasn't much to catch. They won...

So that's both of our relegation rivals that we've lost against by performing way below our ability. Is there a mental problem with the players rather than a technical one? We beat the top team when we didn't expect to, yet lost the two games that we felt confident about - overconfidence perhaps? Well, there's six games left. We're four points adrift. We need two wins just to catch up assuming the others don't also get a win (unlikely given Sandy Lane have won two on the trot and have Thornton this weekend), so relegation is looking highly probable once again. This weekend's trip to Barrowford has just become another must-win game.

Finally, good luck to Shanny on his knee operation - speedy recovery and hope to see you come to watch a game at some point in the next few weeks.