A Challenge Overcome

On the road again, this time to leafy Thornton in Craven for the last match of the first half of the season. Yes, we're already halfway through the cricket season - those winter nights will be closing in on us soon! But for now we can still enjoy the warmth of the summer sun and take in a lovely game of cricket...

Gully won the toss and chose to bat first to let the batsmen have a bit of practice after a string of quite low targets to chase. Kamran got us off to a flier again hitting a rapid 48 off just 26 balls. Just think what sort of score he would get if he managed to face a hundred deliveries! With a decent foundation, Gully and Akeel both got in before getting out without getting big runs. We did appear to be struggling a little at 103 - 6. and there were a few nerves at home as we monitored the score with the double-edged sword that is real-time scoring. And it was at this point the 'in play' scores stopped updating so back at home we were in the dark, a little apprehensive, and totally unaware that Ehsan and Zulie were having a field day scoring 60 and 45 (both not out) respectively, and ramping our final score up to a very respectable 212 for 7

Our bowling unit have performed amazingly over the course of the season so far. But at some point it has to fail right? Well it certainly got a better test this week than any previous game. Zullie (4-26) provided both control and wickets as a bowler with his greeat ability always does. That's 30 wickets in the first half for him, so here's hoping for an equally profitable second half. Arfan continued to provide a healthy foil for Zullie, picking up a couple more, and Quaddy (1-21) bowled a very tight 8 over spell. Special mention to Naveed for three stumpings in the match - not often you see that! (Though the bowlers will all claim they put them on a plate for Nav so all down to them...) Also another couple of catches and a good run out - the fielding has been sharp this year! In the end we ran out fairly comfortable winners by 40 runs, and with only 8 balls remaining Thornton were never going to get the win even if they had another couple of wickets left. Still second on run ratio then as Embsay also won, as did 3rd place Glusburn to keep the heat on.

So moving on to this weekend. We start again with the return fixture from the start of the season, facing a struggling Denholme team at home. We won hansomely at their ground wracking up 229-8 and dismissing them for just 62 in reply. Denholme have found it difficult moving up to the 3rd division and are currently winless so really we shouldn't struggle with this one - but it's always when you get complacent that things go awry...