Digging Deep - Batting Deep

It was a funny game against Bradley last weekend. The batting was ferocious at times yet fragile at other points. Bradley bowled well, but were battered. Their best bowler took five wickets, but conceded a hefty 71 for his troubles. And there was a last wicket stand of note as much for the quality of the shots as for the quantity of runs.

Riddlesden won the toss and batted first, and went off like a rocket with Kamran swatting boundaries with ease. Naveed followed suite but was bowled with the score on 45, having been hit hard in the back from a Kamran drive that he failed to evade - though incredibly the ball still reached the boundary, so everyone knows it was travelling when it felled Nav! Shanny kept the momentum up though and the score progressed to 68 before Kamran(42) smashed one straight at Danny Hunt who took the catch well. Aftab fell cheaply for once, but Ehsan(13) looked good before becoming the 4th wicket to fall with the score on 99. But then we had a stutter. Gully and Akeel both went without scoring and suddenly Riddlesden appeared to be in a spot of bother. Coach provided some support to Shanny but both fell in quick succession (Shanny for a good 44 we still hadn't reached the 3rd batting point at 138-8. Zullie got us just over that line but 141-9 felt a bit light so there was a lot riding on Arfan and Ibrahim. And they stepped up to the mark, Arfan drove and flicked off his legs superbly. Ibrahim looked confident (though I find it hard to believe his 10 runs came off zero balls - an admins slip-up there I think...) And between them they added 38 valuable runs before Ibrahim holed out with the score on 179, just a single run shy of full batting points. But this was a defendable total and that's the most important thing. Hats off to Bradley - they stuck at the task and took wickets regularly after our fast start.

But could they challenge with the bat, that was the question. And in short, no they could not. Zullie bowled the opener with his 3rd delivery. Arfan bowled our old friend Ibrar for a stylish but not particularly useful 2 in the 4th over. Zullie (4-26) then picked up a brace in the 5th over to leave Bradley reeling at 12-4, with 3 wickets tumbling without a run being added. Toby Meynall and Dave Hunt then staged a bit of a fightback adding 39 for the 5th wicket but when Hunt was out with the score on 51 to Zullie again, it triggered another pair of quick wickets, this time to Aftab, who then added a superb runout with a direct hit to have Bradley on 58-8. After another mini-recovery, Aftab (3-9) grabbed his third wicket (all bowled) and Ehsan finished things off with another runout. Bradley finished on 80 all out, handing a 99 run win to Riddlesden.

Eldwick also ran out comfortable winners against Bingley Congs, and also matched our 19 point haul so remain in second place behind us going into the Jubilee weekend clash. This is going to be a big one!