It's the Hope that Hurts

So, last weekend saw another defeat I'm afraid. It was at the hands of a youthful but strong Silsden side who turned up with a mass of supporters and a good bowling attack. Lucky for them that they had the latter as their batsmen didn't excel - unfortunately neither did ours.

Having been put into bat, Steve was quickly dismissed, closely followed by Qaddy. Mick held the line for a while and new boy Harris Mahmood looked promising in his brief innings, but nobody really shone and despite a late effort from Gully to rescue things, Riddlesden limped to 102 all out with 15 overs left unused!

After a fabulous tea made by yours truly, Silsden started quite nicely reaching 41 with the loss of just 1 wicket. But then a spell of good bowling, fielding and misjudgement from the batters provided hope as 5 wickets fell for just 8 runs. Another new boy, Arfan Mahmood looked the part as an opening bowler and picked up 3 wickets for 31 from his 12 overs. Qaddy was immense going for just a miserly 0 runs from his 11 overs, and snaffled a pair of wicket too.

Suddenly we were in with a shout. Had the corner been turned. Hope was in the air. Like I say, hope hurts...

A major problem was the number of byes conceded (23) showing that we lacked a proper wicket keeper. Kudos to Harris for stepping in to fill the gloves, very keen, but it is a specialist role and proved difficult for us. Silsden slowly but surely ground the runs required, their tail-enders defying their own colleagues' expectations (there were some cutting remarks that eventually turned to cheers for one player in particular, eventually reaching the total for the loss of just one more wicket and with 5 overs to spare.

Let's put that one behind us as this weekend is going to be a cracker. The scorching summer weather has arrived and with it an upturn in fortunes? We're due some runs, and the next week would be an excellent time to get started as we (may?) have three matches in four days!

First up we entertain Oakworth at home on Saturday at 2pm. Need a win, beat them last year, let's do it again! Then on Sunday at 1pm we host Hepworth & Idle in the Cowling Cup quarter final. It's a T20 competition so come down and watch the big hits! Then on Tuesday evening we are set to play Crossflatts away in the Keighley Cup if the date has been agreed - that's also a T20, and also the quarter final stage. If we can amass three wins by this time next week we'll all be on cloud nine!