Didsbury welcomed Macc to Mere after two disappointing defeats. The losses to Bowden and Timperley have definitely got heads down, so the lads will have wanted to make things right. Earlier in the year, we picked up our first win of the season away to Macclesfield, rolling them and chasing it all before 3:30pm.

Lots of changes to the side that played Bowden last weekend. Archie, Shabih, Baseem, OG Jnr, Aaron, and I were either away or unavailable on the Saturday only, so the 2As welcomed back Will Neal, Harri Aggarwal, Nigel Bellamy, Zohaib Ahmad, and a first start of the season for young wicket keeper Kush Patel. It was also the Return of the Fish!

Rehmani lost the toss and the 2As were put into bat on what was a traditional green deck at Mere. Good luck to whoever is opening the batting… wait, what? Shish and Harri got their pads on and walked out to the middle. What a sight! And they made it look far easier than me and Shabih to start with, particularly Harri with three boundaries in the first two overs of the innings. There pair were 26-0 off just four overs, before Harri was caught having got a leading edge. No shame on getting dismissed by Will Jennings, who got seven or eight wickets against the 2As at Mere last year!

Nikash followed in the next over with his first ball. It has been a tough reintegration into the 2As this year for the young Lancashire all-rounder. Shish followed shortly after, knicking it to slip, meaning Dids went from a promising start of 29-0 to 35-3. Good to see nothing has changed this week then!

Sunil and Sean dug in and built a good partnership of 63, laying the platform for the rest of the team. Sean was bowled in the over before drinks with the score on 98-4. With 25 overs to bat and some genuine batters in the hutch to come in, Dids will have wanted to bat sensibly to 200. However, the team lost regular wickets and struggled to just 156 all out off 48 overs. Sunil was the only shining light of our innings with his second half century of the season, leapfrogging me to be the 2As top run-scorer this season, and now also in the top 10 runs in the league!

Not batting 50 overs and only managing an extra 50 runs for the final six wickets in 25 overs is poor form. Macc were the much happier side and Dids heads were down at half time.

Fortunately for us, we have two of the best opening bowlers in the league, Will and Reh, who got into their work quickly and left the away side waning at 44-4. Harri then joined the attack and picked up two quick wickets, meaning Macc were 71-6 and Didsbury well on top. Frustratingly, runs then started to leak and Macclesfield put together a 50 partnership, anchored by Vyas who had earlier claimed four wickets. Rehmani brought himself back on and broke the partnership, meaning the game was in the balance, but both Reh and Will had almost bowled their full 13 overs.

I’ve been told there was some questionable umpiring afterwards, with a blatant run-out not given while Macc were eight down and some choice words shared by both teams. The away side chased the total nine down and with Vyas carrying his bat on 48*. We have been on the winning side of these types of games this year, so the cricketing gods had their say. It does however seem that we are struggling to manage game situations better, and win those types of games. In a low-scoring game, extras also played a part, with Dids bowling 15 more than the opposition!

A tough one to take. It was however good to hear that Nikash was back bowling again, and hopefully this means he is healthy enough to progressively take on more overs as we continue through the season.

This loss means that the 2As drop a further place to sixth, one point behind Alvanley and two ahead of Macclesfield. It’s very congested in mid-table, and we are travelling to league leaders Lindow this weekend for another tough game. They did however lose to Grappers on the weekend..

Picture: Views from the scorers table