Best of the six!

Audlem 2nd XI overcame adversity and achieved their most satisfying victory of the season, defeating Mossley by 5 wickets on Saturday at the Gorse Croft.

Six wins out of six were successfully completed, despite at one point on Friday having only eight players owing to holidays, injury and a couple of 2nd XI regulars called up to consolidate the 1st XI batting line-up.

Feverish phone calls eventually ensured a full team, although two of the call-ups had never played league cricket before and one had not graced a cricket pitch for nine years.

Additionally Steve Ellsmoor was still suffering from the effects of his recent long-haul flight, Rob Mottershead from his brother's 21st celebrations and with only five players left from last week's winning team, skipper Danny Thorburn was not unhappy at losing the toss.

Mossley decided to bat first on an excellent wicket, testimony to the sterling work of groundsmen Wainwright and Woodcock and which was described at Monday's T20 competition by winners Bignall End as the best they had played on all season.

The next problem was only having three regular bowlers, one of whom had yet to arrive at the ground, but Thorburn showed a real captain's attitude and took the responsibility of opening the bowling together with the youthful Charlie Hine.

The latter bowled with accuracy but it was Thorburn who was the day's revelation. One wicket in the past three years from occasional spells was history as the captain bowled with hostility and no little pace.

Danny removed dangerous opener Austin, the big-hitting McKinlay, well caught by Woodcock in a rare appearance in the covers, and the aggressive Symes to finish with 3-31 from 11 overs, a performance which was as enjoyable as it was surprising.

As ever Lyndon Woodcock caused huge problems with his guile and when Mossley had reached 62-5 Brandon Rigby and Laura Griffiths shut up shop to shield the lower order batmen and the innings could only inch forward, strangled by the accuracy of Mottershead, Woodcock and Hine.

With the score at 86 Mottershead made an easy catch look difficult to dismiss the dogged Griffiths who had shown many of her team-mates the way forward, and the innings quickly subsided to 100 all out in 43 overs.

Woodcock followed up last week's 8 wickets with a superb 5-29 (4 clean bowled including the excellent Rigby ), Mottershead took 2-16 from 11 overs and Hine 0-17 from 10 overs. These were impressive performances from all four bowlers, enthusiastically supported in the field, one of the late call-ups even sustaining a broken finger.

In reply Thorburn and Zar Ahmed showed their intentions by both smacking their first balls to the boundary and they quickly swashed and buckled their way to 52 runs from 9 overs before Danny was surprisingly caught at gully for a fine 22.

Mossley did their cause no favours by conceding a huge amount of extras, and, as last week, this extra contribution finished with a top score of 35. Rob Mottershead skittered to 5 before also being well caught at slip and when Zar over-estimated the pace of Tony Gadsden, the resulting run out left the home side 70-3.

Zar then fell for an attractive 30 (how often do you read that?) and when Charlie Hine was adjudged LBW for 5, suddenly John Wainwright and Leo North unexpectedly found themselves at the crease. Fittingly it was club stalwart Wainwright who smote the winning boundary which came in the 21st over.

25 more points, all the more pleasing because of the testing circumstances leading up to the game. With pursuers Stretton and Stalybridge (thanks to a concession) also winning, Audlem 2nd XI's lead at the top of the league remains 21 points.

Next up is a trip on Saturday to Frodsham, 1.30pm start.

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