Audlem 2nds take on Bowdon Vale

Audlem 2nds welcomed Bowdon Vale 2nds to Gorse Croft on a dark, cloudy, cold spring day. The fact that the ground was playable was testimony to the sterling efforts of Messrs Wainwright and Woodcock – the square was waterlogged on Friday after a day of constant rain.

The Audlem skipper, Danny Thorburn won the toss and elected to put the visitors into bat. It was a decision that was vindicated as Bowdon Vale struggled to make any impact with the bat. They got off to a terrible start when they lost their opener, J Ryan, run-out due to a bad error of judgement in attempting a run that was never there.

Amazingly, this was then followed by a second successive runout of the other opener, G Buckley! The difference this time, however, was that Buckley was ambling back for a 2nd run and appeared in no danger as the ball was being fielded on the cover boundary.

Unfortunately for Buckley, the fielder, Slack, collected the ball like lightning and in the same motion unleashed a thunderbolt throw from 50 meters that crashed into the stumps whilst the bewildered batsman was still a yard from his crease. The unlucky Buckley had the grace to congratulate Slack on his way to the pavilion.

The visitors never recovered from these run outs and continued to lose wickets steadily. They subsided to 36-7 and a sub-50 score looked on the cards. However, a battling 28 not out by D Gould and 11 from H Mills provided a sting in the tail and meant that Bowdon Vale were able to muster 93 before being bowled out.

The star bowlers for Audlem were Charley Hines who took 3-14 off 6 overs and Slack who took 2-2 off 8 overs! Both of these bowlers bowled superbly and never let the visitors settle.

Audlem began their chase solidly with Ahmed and Jones adding 50 for the opening wicket before Ahmed was dismissed for an unconvincing 7. However, Jones was plundering the bowling to all parts before being dismissed for 43.

Audlem were not batting with great conviction however, and steadily lost wickets. In fact, the visitors sniffed a chance of victory when the score was 59-4. However, Slack then arrived at the crease and changed the momentum of the game completely.

He proceeded to hit some mighty blows to rule out any possibility of an upset and took Audlem across the finishing line with a dismissive innings of 31 not out.

So, a comfortable win for Audlem even though it was not a great team performance overall as it relied on a few individual peformances from Slack, Hines and Jones. However, it was a very satisfying day nonetheless – it is now 4 wins out of 4 and top of the table for the Gorse Croft outfit!

Next week, Audlem 2nds travel to Hartford.

Scores : Bowdon Vale 93 all out (C Hines 3-14, D Slack 2-2)
Audlem 94-6 (Jones 43, Slack 31no)

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