Bulls vs Alderley Edge Moles

A miserable rainy Friday afternoon but both teams were keen to play. Arriving at the ground at 5 pm and expecting to see nobody, already there were several keen young cricketers watching the clouds in anticipation.

The clouds cleared (ish), the covers came off and a reduced 15 over competition was underway with minimal delay. Our scorer (me) kept a straight face as he was given the opposition team (is that 2 ff's in Flintoff, can you spell Vaughn please, is that Chapple or Chappel?!) but I knew their pedigree and whilst young it was formidable.

I'm not sure who won the toss but we batted first and Max Fisher went to a first ball seamer that hit off. Tough start. Henrik came in and played a straight bat to some high quality medium pace bowling whilst stealing runs here and there with Dan. He was run out to a good throw and was followed in by Taha (The Beast!) a man with a good eye and he hit three brutal boundaries before being unluckily caught on the boundary going big again. Finn scored a few and then Aahil showed great promise with 23 off 27 with four 4'sincluding a textbook drive front of square. Dan Ward retired on 30 NO, which had only two 4's but off 35 balls, showing the value of match awareness and taking every single on offer. 84-5 of 15 was a good total.

Comedy moment at between innings break when Marcus Fisher was sledged by one of the 'All Star' children for delivering drinks late. I'm not sure I would risk it!

Max opened the bowling and bowled his best opening spell of the season, fast and accurate. Very fast. Dan also bowled well and they tied down 2 quality batsmen (Vaughn/Flintoff!!) but didn't get the wicket they both deserved. AE were well behind the run rate. The rest of the bowlers all bowled well, but it is meaningless and unfair on the bowlers to quote figures as slowly the game slipped away from us through poor fielding, not helped by being a man short.

So we lost to an exceptionally talented young team (not a single wide or no ball), there is no shame in that. It was also our best batting and bowling performance of the season but those 10 or 15 from misfields were the difference. Alderley Edge whilst younger were focussed and committed as a team in the field whilst we were quiet and lazy. The coaches are looking for players who commit themselves in every department, but fielding ability is now very much on their radar.

ps Stat to remember: Vaughn caught Locke bowled Holm!!!!!