Cup dreams dashed by Sunlight as 2nds crash out

After Saturday's league game at Mossley was cancelled due to the weather, the 2nd XI looked forward to hosting Port Sunlight for Sunday's 40-over Knockout Cup match.  The visitors came to Gorse Croft as an unknown quantity being new to the league after joining from the Merseyside Competition.

They proved to be worthy opponents and inflicted the first defeat of the season on the 2nd XI, having the edge in all departments of the game. Audlem at least had the satisfaction of bowling them out within their allotted 40 overs, but the visitors had managed to amass 184 runs in that time.

Lyndon Woodcock, John Chadwick, Rob Morrison and Roy Wild all bowled tight, tidy spells and took two wickets each.  However, the pick of the attack was young Ron Farnell, who snared Port's top scorer, Jonno Roberts, lbw for a fine 70.  He bowled his four overs for 20 runs when the opposition were launching their assault and heading for a score in excess of 220.

Chasing a rate of over of four and a half runs per over, Audlem had to adjust their batting order to give themselves a realistic chance of achieving their goal.  They found runs hard to score against an accurate attack and an outfield considerably slower due to a shower of rain during the early stages of the reply. Steve Ellsmore was the only batsmen to shine on the day, opening his tally with a mighty straight 6 and finishing the home team's top scorer on 22. The innings was wound up in the 37th over with Audlem well adrift on 123 all out.  Morrison 16 and John Wainwright 16 not out were the other main scorers.

Next Saturday the 2nd XI, in seventh place, hope to get back to winning ways in Division 4, when next-to-bottom Hartford are the visitors to the Gorse Croft.  The match starts at 1.30 pm.

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