Good Weekend for Audlem Cricketers

Audlem's cricketers made home advantage count over the weekend with both teams registering victories over their opponents.

Endon were on the receiving end on Saturday in the league encounter at The Gorse Croft when they were comprehensively beaten by 86 runs.
It didn't start too brightly for the hosts with both openers back in the pavilion with only 20 on the scoreboard but with Andy Rothwell (60) finding his best form of the season putting on 40 in a third wicket stand with Jay Simms and adding another 64 for the fourth wicket with Dave Parkinson (56) things were looking much brighter.

A further partnership of 50 between Dave and Callum McIlveen took the score onto 194 before the innings was concluded at 208 for 7 with Callum remaining unbeaten on 38 not out. Peter Slinn was the pick of the bowling attack completing his eight over allocation with 2 wickets for 41 runs.

Endon's reply never really got going with wickets falling at regular intervals to prevent them gaining any momentum. Six batsmen reached double figures but none were able to progress against Audlem's varied bowling attack with Callum McIlveen, Simon Swift and Ron Paul all finishing with 2 wickets apiece with Neil Humphries and Dave Parkinson claiming one each plus two run outs leaving the visitors on 122 all out after 36 overs.

Next Saturday Audlem travel to Sandbach who find themselves mid table in the league standings whilst Audlem are third after 5 games ( 1:00pm start )

The Sunday X1 had a change of opposition with Wilmslow, their original opponents defaulting on the fixture late on Thursday evening siting 'transport difficulties' for their cancellation. Last week's opponents, Malpas found themselves in a similar situation so a rematch was arranged at The Gorse Croft.

Another close encounter ensued with the hosts coming away with a narrow victory by the slender margin of 7 runs. Audlem's total of 178 for 4 off 35 overs looked about par on the day with the main contributions coming from inform Dave Parkinson ( 51 retired not out ) , Ramos Bukhari ( 53 retired not out ) and well supported by the back to form Nick Hancock with 22 runs to his name. The pick of the opposition bowling was young Jack Parry who bowled 4 overs with fine figures of 1 for 14 bowling at the host's prolific middle order batsmen. An excellent performance for the young man.

Malpas found themselves two players short on the morning of the match and with a couple of spectators volunteering to turn out for the hosts Audlem were able to loan out two of their own to ensure parity between the sides. This nearly proved to be Audlem's downfall with allrounder Richard Irvine proving to be immovable in reaching his half century before retiring not out. His innings set the game up for a grandstand finish with belligerent M. Hagan ( 23 not out ) and M. Parry ( 33 not out ) almost taking their team to victory. The volunteering spectators proved to be key bowlers in the match as they had come to support their friends in the Audlem X1 but were competent performers and contributed to the narrow victory.

Next Sunday Audlem play hosts to Wistaston with a 1:00 pm start

John Wainwright
Audlem Cricket Club