In the final game of the season for the Friendly XI we faced a Mottram side who had come fully prepared in their club tracksuits, we certainly knew we'd be in for a competitive game.

On a decent Denton West pitch Jake won the toss & decided to bowl first with Abby & Chris opening. The Mottram openers proved frustrating, Chris nearly got the first wicket putting down with a tough caught and bowled but it was Abby who broke the deadlock bowling one of their openers. Abby bowled some really tight lines all day, with figures of 7 overs, 1 maiden, 15 runs and 2 wickets, a great way to finish the season. The first bowling changes were the Jawlekar's (Santosh & Abhinav) who came into the attack and proved tough for the Mottram batters, especially struggling with Santosh who went for 8 runs in 4 overs. However it was his son's off spin that bowled the Mottram batter reducing them to 78-4. Ankur (with a fractured finger!) came onto bowl and got three quick wickets with his medium paced spin (?) (Steve and Jake at slip still weren't sure what to call it) splitting up some key Mottram partnerships, that led to Harry bowling off-spin from the other end tempting the Mottram batters into some shots, which led to getting the key wicket of their top scorer. After this wicket, Mottram collapsed with Mohsin's pace bowling getting three of their tailenders, including 2 wickets in 2 balls and Roland chipping in with a wicket as well, finishing Mottram off for 153 all out.

We believed 154 was a reachable target with the skill we had in the dressing room, Chris felt confident with the bat and opened with boundary specialist Mohsin. Chris was in for a few balls before giving a dolly to their fielder who was in close, this brought Jake into the crease with Dids at 0-1. Mohsin and Jake began to build a nice partnership with Mohsin's quick hitting and Jake's more conservative approach brought the score on nicely. Mohsin's innings came to an end after playing on, getting a quick 22 off 16, bringing Steve to the crease who also kept brilliantly for us in the first innings. Jake and Steve we're looking like they'd stick around, both playing some nice shots with a few boundaries from Jake, but two quick wickets from Mottram getting the pair with some good length bowling brought Henrik and Harry to the crease. These two put on our largest partnership, with the tide moving back into Didsbury's favour roughly needing 4 an over to win, the pair played some decent shots although Henrik may have gotten lucky getting dropped whilst on single figures. Henrik's 24 off 33 and Harry's 25 off 35 put us into a position to win the game, with Harry batting like a player far above his years. After these two went, Didsbury collapsed from 112-6 to 119 all out, the tail unfortunately didn't wag for the Friendly XI this week, with Abhinav putting up some fight with 7 off 17 and breaking his bat in the process, not sure Santosh will be happy about that one! Roland, Santosh and Ankur (who couldn't really hold his bat) all went for 1, which left Abby 1* (good for the average!) at the end and us 119 all out.

A tough game to lose as we thought it was there for the taking at one stage, our patience with the bat ultimately cost us the game. There were a number of nominations for Freddo Friendly player of the day, including Ankur for his 3 wickets, Mohsin for his wickets and quick fire 22, however, it was Harry Smith that took the biggest accolade at Didsbury CC for his key wicket in the first innings and a fantastic knock with the bat, well done Harry!

It's been great to run and be part of the Friendly XI this year, thanks to all that have participated and made it so worthwhile!