Didsbury 5s win by 8 wickets

For once, the start of the season was a lovely sunny and warm day which was a surprise. Ben called the toss correctly and Didsbury elected to field on an unsurprisingly green wicket. James Price gets 2 fines for 1) keener – first to turn up at the meet and 2) forgetting his spikes so missed the first over.

Alex Bennett and Andy Jones opened the bowling with Alex toiling up the hill. Jonesy was getting some good movement without success and then induced a leading edge for Steve Whiteside to snaffle at short extra cover. Alex bowled tight lines and combined with tidy fielding nipped out their opener and also had another expertly caught at slip. JP did his best to put Pricey off the catch but to no avail. Jonesy then broke through again and with a big shout for caught behind we thought we had another.

Alas, no and then an excellent stand of 44 between Bredbury captain Dan Evans and Geoff Mountford got Bredbury back on track until Harris bowled a full-toss (probably his worst ball of the day) and Alex Bennett took the catch at square-leg. Harris had another shortly after with Omar taking a sharp chance at backward point. Hannah, economical as always with 5 maidens, trapped their skipper LBW and we sensed we could wrap things up without too many more runs being scored.

Rab induced a stumping and also bowled another leaving Bredbury with 1 wicket remaining. Andy Jones bowled the last over and was extremely sporting to not Mankad the non-striker off the last ball of the innings. After then delivering the last ball, the batsmen ran anyway, to try and reach 100 and get the 2 batting points, JP ran the stumps down, backing his feet rather than his arms.

So 100 to win and Ben Anderson opened with JJ and started briskly courtesy of 2 boundaries (1 for byes) off the first two balls of the innings. Ben then settled into a more sedate pattern of scoring. JJ was caught at mid-off and Pricey played all around a straight one to leave us 35-2. Steve Whiteside joined Ben and they made steady progress. All three of Rab, Haris and JJ managed to miscount and we had three 7-ball overs and one 5-ball over. Steve scored at pretty much a run a ball whilst there was more of a Dravidesque performance from Ben. The 50 partnership came and went and in a couple more overs the target was reached. An 8 wicket win and a solid start to this seasons campaign.

The next fixture is vs Brooklands 3s with the game being played at KerridgeCC. The match starts at 1 pm.