Damp Slow Start on a Damp Slow Day

An excellent half century from Gully couldn't prevent defeat on Saturday as Riddlesden entertained Thornton in Craven on a chilly but mostly dry day. Having lost the toss and been asked to bat first, we struggled to score in the early stages, partly due to a slow and damp outfield. Qaddy was unlucky to be bowled after playing a defensive shot that dropped and spun on to the stumps. Mick and Ibrar got into a muddle resulting in the former being run out, and Akeel, having thumped a four and a six early on was undone going for another big hit. Gully marshalled the batting nicely to provide some much needed runs, but as the wickets tumbled we became more and more reliant on his composed performance. In the end, a score of 77 all out was never going to be a challenging scoreline.

And so to Thornton's innings. Debutant Aqeel Aziz and Qaddy bowled a nice tight opening spell but Kevin Pollard showed all his experience in slowly accruing the runs required. Eventually a change of bowlers did the trick with vice captain Zain doing the honours with the first of his (and the team's!)three wickets. But by then, Thornton were already within 25 runs of our total, and they reached the winning scoreline at a canter. Looking at the bowling figures, everybody can be satisfied with their returns as the bowling was good and tight - I would say the bowlers performed well. It was the batting that let us down with the obvious exception of Gully.

So a bad day, but it was the first game so let's hope that was just a blip. This weekend sees Riddlesden travel to Bingley Congs - a club that has brought in at least 13 new players this season to compliment their already huge squad, so we have to expect a challenge there as they must have quite a few good players. One of them is former player Towhid Ali who may appear against us (he was named in the 3rd team in week one, then in 2nd team last week but actually ended up playing for the 1st team - interestingly one of another former player's, Ziggy, four wicket haul in just 22 balls!)

At home Eldwick may - weather permitting - make an appearance for the first time since September...