Absolutely Quackers

Thanks to the rain causing Eldwick's game to be called off at home due to a wet pitch, I had the rare opportunity to travel with Riddlesden to an away match this weekend. It was a short journey over to Bingley and the leafy rural idyll of Bingley Congs ground, where we waited patiently, blocking the entire road, whilst somebody turned up to open the gate...

Once ready we won the toss and invited Congs to bat first. The match was a classic tale of two halves. Opening the bowling, Qaddy and Zain kept things tight and restricted the openers to a very slow accumulation. Unfortunately a breakthrough was a long time coming but eventually a change of bowling brought our new guy Aqeel Aziz his first wicket for the club - a smart caught and bowled. T'other, original, Akeel also bowled tightly and the score remained in check, whilst all the time the nagging fear of a late onslaught with wickets in hand remained. However, each bowler continued to bowl with accuracy and confidence and slowly chipped away at the batting line up as Zain, Qaddy and Akeel all took scalps. In the closing stages Biggy came on to bowl - an unlikely death bowler I would have said but I'd have been wrong as he picked up a pair of wickets in his four overs including a lovely spin bowler's stumping.

Having restricted Bingley Congs to just 134-7 from the full 45 overs through a combination of good bowling and excellent fielding (hats off to Mick Cryer here who pulled off some great stops close in), the Riddlesden lads were in jubilant mood.

Alas, the second half was not up to the standard of the first. Congs have some very good bowlers, but on the day also some very lucky bowlers. Whereas Congs played false shots and narrowly got away with them, pretty much every half chance from a Riddlesden batsman was out. Having lost three wickets in the first two overs for just 2 runs, the writing was on the wall. Qaddy and Dale provided some resistance, and new players Waleed Mehboob (if he hits the ball it knows it has been hit!) and Aqeel Aziz, who played quite nicely after some initial nerves, provided some cheer at least, but the 7 ducks we suffered doomed us to fall well short, finally succumbing on just 41.

So, positives? Bowling again was good - all of the bowlers can be satisfied with their performances. Fielding was also good - a couple of misfields but overall it was impressive. Batting... Not a lot. Oddly, Rahim batting at 11 received positive feedback on account of playing with a straight bat. Dale looked assured from the off despite having not played for a year. And Aqeel can also take heart from his batting performance once he had settled in.

On to the next one - home to Glusburn CC. Need to get a few runs this week to get the confidence back. After all, last year we were dominating teams with the bat - it only takes one good performance to turn it all around again.