Audlem CC report

First defeat of the season

Audlem's cricketers slid to their first defeat of the season in Sunday's encounter with last season's close rivals, Moddershall & Oulton at The Gorse Croft.

On winning the toss visiting skipper Sandeeptha Jayathilaka had no hesitation with his decision to ask the home team to bat first. It was a break from the usual routine by Moddershall who normally choose to bat first and attempt to accumulate runs as quickly as possible and use any extra overs they might accrue to bowl the opposition out. This tactic failed to gain it's rewards last season as they failed on a number of occasions to dismiss their opponents in key games and had to settle for draws which allowed Audlem to overhaul them and ultimately claim the league title.

Audlem's innings progressed well with both opener Dan Butler( 53) & Ronnie Farnell (54) registering half centuries but in the process of accelerating the run rate the impetus was lost somewhat and instead of a projected total of 220 plus had to settle for a more modest 178 all out. Useful contributions were recorded by Charlie Hine (22) and Andy Rothwell (16 no). Top bowlers for Moddershall were spin duo Jayathilaka & Arachchi who finished with figures of 4 for 33 and 3 for 29 respectively.

A fine opening partnership by the Moddershall batsmen set up the visitor's victory with the first wicket putting on 78 runs. Audlem were given brief hope as 3 more wickets fell in quick succession to leave them on 93 for 4 but then Premadasa and Arachchi took the game away from the hosts with a fine stand of 70.Neil Humphries was the pick of the bowlers claiming 3 wickets for 23 runs during his 8 over spell. The game ended with a 5 wicket victory for Moddershall with seven overs in hand.

Moddershall gained 20 points for their victory whilst Audlem earned 7 bonus points from the encounter.

The Scorer's nightmare

Scorer Jordan Harding deserves a special mention for dealing with the extra workload due to the Moddershall team being a group of Sri Lankan lads with extremely long and unpronounceable names.

Next week Audlem travel to Checkley for their next league game.

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