Pretend the middle week didn't happen

I didn't write a report on our second game. There wasn't much to write. We scored 73 and only took a single wicket as Gargrave romped to victory. For the first time since the new scoring system was brought in, we received no points! If only it had been Eurovision week I could at least have made a pun out of it...

So, onto last week and the cup. We were away at Ingrow, a team in the division below us and whose previous two matches had seen them dismissed for 71 and 73. We had a weakened team due to three regulars being unavailable, but this was our chance to get the season back on track.

Ingrow won the toss and chose to field. Kamran and Mansha opened and made good progress, scoring at 5 an over for the first 8 overs. Alas the partnership was broken on 40 with the loss of Mansha for 28 from 27 balls. Kamran then turned on the offense with 3 consecutive boundaries, before he too fell with the score on 62. Tayyab and Irfan kept the momentum going, both getting a pair of sixes, but the wickets kept falling and we found ourselves 105-4. Arfan is proving to be a dependable batter this year and scored a good 27, but he was the last to make double figures. The end came quickly with the last 4 wickets falling in 6 overs for just 22 runs as Riddlesden finished on 157 all out. A marked improvement on the previous two games though, scoring almost as many as in them combined.

Ingrow's reply began slowly with just a single from the first 3 overs. Still, after 10 overs they had 30 on the board without loss so a wicket was needed. Two overs later, we got two as Irfan bagged a pair in 3 balls. Soon afterwards, the 3rd wicket went to Arfan followed in the 19th by his second victim, and at 70-4 at almost the halfway stage things were looking good. Unfortunately the 20th over went for 15 runs and M Chowdhory set about building a score. Whilst none of his colleagues scored many runs, they did enough to keep him company as he hit 4 sixes and 6 fours in a knock of 71 not out. It came down to a tense finish as Ingrow's last pair came together still needing 22 to win. One more wicket was all we required. It wasn't to be - with 14 balls to spare Ingrow reached their target and took the victory. The 'worm' statistic shows Ingrow were always behind us on the scoring pace, but having an extra 5 overs to reach the target allowed them time to catch and overtake us - a lesson to be learned in batting out the overs perhaps.

On to the next match. This week we're back in league action with a home match against Wilsden who are on a bit of a losing streak of their own with three consecutive defeats. Their one win coming against Eldwick by a single run, they have scores of 143, 100, 109 and 137 - all out in each case, so seem pretty consistent but nothing spectacular. Mind you, they have more batting bonus points than us - let's hope we change that this week!