Match Report
U17s St Chads v Saxton
14th June 2010
St. Chads 121-8 beat Saxton 113 all out
On the back of a promising win against Hillam and Monk Fryston last week, Saxton travelled to league leaders St Chads hoping that they could secure successive victories for the first time this season. Some interesting driving by some of the lads to the other Chads ground via a ‘shortcut’ through Leeds city centre meant a slightly late start to the game and that it would be reduced to 18 overs a side. The weather was sunny and bright, ideal conditions for batting first, maybe?........
Saxton were to bowl first, and some aggressive batting from the opening pair allowed the runs to accelerate to almost 40 off the first few overs, before 4 wickets fell in quick succession, through some tight bowling from Usain Baxter and Tiger Woods, (who took the off stump out of the ground for his second wicket) reducing St Chads to 47-4. This included the dangerman ‘Freddie’, who had scored 150 in the cup against the 2nd team not so long ago, and he was dismissed for only 1. However, 5 and 6 began a partnership that lasted several overs and cost Saxton a further 40 runs. This partnership could have been ended sooner if it weren’t for 2 dropped catches from the usually reliable Mr Volleyball.
The introduction of Hezy and Jonny to the attack brought about 4 more wickets. Hezy took 2 in 2 balls and Jonny fired in a short one that took a big nick off the bat and went straight through to Donald. There were, however a few dropped catches from Scouse (volleyed Mr Volleyball style over deep square leg for 6), Usain, and Teeth (which slid over the boundary for 4) and we couldn’t stop St Chad’s posting a decent 121-8 off 18 overs. Better fielding from several people could have restricted this total a little. Catching practice needed, lads!
Openers Hezy and Richards strode out onto the pitch after the break hoping to start the innings with a bang. This was not to be for Richards, who was bowled in the 2nd over for just 2. In came Jonny……and out came Jonny as he was also bowled but for a golden duck. Saxton 2 down with only a few runs on the board, so in stepped Donald at No. 4. Hezy and Donald created a great partnership for the third wicket, hitting several boundaries, before Hezy was caught at mid-wicket for 21, which included a one handed flick for 6 over the short boundary. Next came Usain Baxter, who was trapped LBW for 3, before Mr Volleyball stepped in at 6 and hit some fluent shots (and clipped the odd edge) and was unluckily stumped for his 18. In stepped Tiger, and he was also stumped, . Jeffo came in at 8.
Yet through all of this Donald was still at the crease making use of the short leg-side boundary, hitting boundaries for fun, until he was unfortunately bowled for nine short of his half century. No. 9 was Smiley and him and Jeffo together put on a few runs before some very poor calling led to Jeffo being run out (again) for 9. Scouse was No.10 and he hit a couple of balls into the leg side for two before Smiley was bowled by the Chad’s spinner for 4. Teeth was at 11 and didn’t face a ball in the penultimate over due to some very poor batting from Scouse playing and missing almost every delivery. So it fell to the last over of the innings, Saxton 111-9, 11 runs required from 6 balls. The first ball of the over was hit into the leg side by Teeth and both him and Scouse decided to run 2, but a good throw from the fielder in the leg side meant that Teeth was just short of his ground on the second run and Saxton were 112 all out, nine runs short.
Very close, but with a little more luck and some better fielding (and possibly batting in some cases!) we could have won this tight game against the league leaders. Hopefully everybody will be up for next weeks single wicket competition and then following that a trip to Garforth PC.
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