Terrible Weather, but the Captain Shines

Summer, where art though?

Its almost unbelievable but we didn't have a day's rain in April and we were having to water the pitch twice weekly for several weeks. In contrast, May has seemingly been one long, steady downpour. It's not good for cricket you know, and it wiped out our last two league matches and our first attempt at a cup match. Bah!

But last week's wet weather did reveal a new hero. Captain Gully! On Friday evening, faced with a submerged cricket square, Gully grabbed a brush and spent over an hour strenuously sweeping the water away. Using a variety of 'shots' he batted those puddles out of the ground, building a steady, if damp, innings in impressive style. Basically he did everything he could to make the surface playable on Saturday but was beaten when the rains returned overnight rendering all his good work undone. But bravo captain - good effort!

But he wasn't done there. No, with the league game abandoned and the pitch unfit for the Sunday game again, he went in search of our opponents and asked if we could switch the fixture to their ground. The, credit to them, agreed and he was able to lead his troops out at long last after three successive cancellations.

And what a performance the team put in. With Bingley Congs batting first they quickly found themselves in all sorts of trouble as Zullie (3 - 6 off 3 overs) combines with wicket keeper Robbo (1 runout, 1 catch) to reduce them to 7 for 4 off just 13 deliveries! It's difficult to say they recovered really but they did manage to reach 30 before the next wicket fell - but that was quickly followed by the rest as Riddlesden bowled Congs out for just 39. Wickets were shared out with Qaddy, Biggie, Jamil and Akeel all joining in the action.

Chasing that total didn't prove too difficult, though we did manage to lose 3 wickets on the way. But an assured 25 from 27 balls for Kamran saw off the bulk of the total, and who else could hit the winning runs other than Gully himself?

So well done to the team, and to Gully. Just a shame he can't do something about the weather...