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Sunday morning? 10am? What sort of time is that for a match? More on that later...

Saturday saw Riddlesden make the relatively short trip across town to cricket stalwarts Oakworth with the opportunity to go level with Embsay in top spot as Embsay had their free week. We got off to a good start by winning the toss and in perfect conditions elected to bat first. Our rapidly developing opening partnership of Kamran and Quaddy got off to a flyer as Kamran once more scored runs easily until bowled for 35. David Robinson (39) then took up the mantle of supporting Quaddy, followed by Gully(27) Akeel(8) and Naveed (27). All worthy scores in their own right, but the backbone of the innings belonged to Quaddy who batted all the way through for an excellent 72 not out. We finished on 223-5 and it already looked like a score beyond the Oakworth team by all accounts.

However, you still have to contain or dismiss the opposition in their innings and with no Zullie or Bibler this week it was to be a new opening bowling partnership. Gully and Hamza contained Oakworth but didn't make a breakthrough. The introduction of Arfan (4-26) once again brought wickets, with Quaddy coming off the back of his batting heroics to pick up a scalp of his own as Oakworth batted through to the close without ever really threatening to catch our score. They finished on 167-5, 56 runs behind mostly thanks to an unbeaten 62 from Michael Scarborough and some late runs after the game was gone in reality. So three more points for Riddlesden, joint top, four points ahead of 3rd placed Glusburn - can't complain.

So on to Sunday and the Cowling Cup match against Bingley Congs 2nds. Congs had requested an early start so they could watch the England football match (yes, I'm not sure either - something to do with falling over theatrically) and after a bit of negotiation a ten o'clock start was agreed. Marvellous. So we locked up early on Saturday night - I mean early morning Sunday - and then arrived back at the ground 8 1/2 hours later to prepare for this one...

Once more we won the toss and this time with the early morning dew still present (maybe?) we chose to field. Congs were quickly in trouble thanks to some frankly excellent fielding from several players - Kamran's run out, Naveed's stumping, Akeel's catch, Steve's athleticism (yes, you read that right, Steve Kernan rolled back the years and looked sharp!) Add in the accuracy of the bowling and Riddlesden were well on top. Andy Blacburn provided a measure of resistance with a combative 29 but otherwise the batting melted to 89 all out with an over left unused.

In came the opening duo of Kamran and Quaddy. Kamran was simply devastating, smashing sixes and fours with abandon. Congs tried to rile him with comments of 'he can't reverse sweep', but that really doesn't matter when you're smashing the ball way back over the bowler's head and out of the ground. Eventually he went for one too many and was stumped for 50 - but we were only in the 6th over! Quaddy had barely faced a ball at this point. Now I'm not entirely sure what happened after this as I went inside to serve teas and coffees to the wonderful bunch of Congs supporters who'd come for breakfast, but when I came back outside we'd lost 4 wickets for just 11 runs and the wheels seemed to have come off! Fortunately with me back in place and the experienced Steve joining Naveed in the middle we lost no more wickets as the pair guided us to a comfortable five wicket win with seven overs to spare.

All in all a good weekend - two wins, joint top of the table and through to the quarter finals of the cup. This week we're at home to 5th placed Haworth 2nds. They're a good team and only 4 points behind us so we need to be disciplined and professional to maintain our current good run. Match starts at 13:30 (a far more sensible time!)