Last weekend's Cricket

May 14th – Saturday XI v Cheadle

On Saturday Audlem made their way into the Staffordshire Moorlands to the picturesque ground at Oakamoor, just a stone's throw away from the famous theme park at Oulton Towers. The hosts were Cheadle who were on top spot in the division with an unbeaten record and fielding a powerful batting line up on the smallest ground in the league so the Audlem lads knew they would have their work cut out just to contain them.

With Cheadle batting first Audlem got off to an excellent start reducing their hosts to 10 for 2 in quick time.. but that was as good as it got for the visitors as Sam Cliffe ( 40 ) and Jack Degg ( 138 not out ) added 121 for the third wicket but the dismissal of Cliffe brought no respite for the toiling fielding team as the incoming batsman was the ex- Staffordshire captain, Paul Shaw ( 56 not out ). The pair remained unbeaten at the end of the allotted overs accelerating the scoring rate with wickets in hand to finish on a formidable 258 for 3.

Audlem's reply to this mammoth total started positively with openers Chris Shenton and Dan Butler putting on 28 for the first wicket in quick time but the pressure to score at over 6 an over told as the batsmen had to chance their arm to keep up with the required rate and this led to the loss of key wickets which put the game out of reach against some decent bowling from the home team. Late order batsmen, Simon Swift (24 ) and Neil Humphries ( 23 ) added some respectability to the score with great support from Tom Measures who finished on 15 not out as the reply petered out to 134 all out to hand a comprehensive and well deserved victory to their hosts.

This Saturday Audlem return to The Gorse Croft to take on mid table Endon with a 1.00pm start

May 15th – Sunday XI vs Malpas

Last Sunday's game against Malpas turned out to be a close run thing. With skipper Ollie Banfield winning the toss and electing to bat first on a rock hard batting surface the runs were soon flowing with principal contributions from Usman Ghani ( 50 retired not out ) Lauren Kenvyn ( 53 retired not out ) & Shayan Hussain ( retired 60 not out ) with valuable support from Ollie Banfield ( 20 ) and Kasim Ahmed ( 27 ). Audlem were happy with their total of 259 for 5 at tea but knew the batting surface held no demons so expected their visitors to attack them on resumption of play.

This was exactly what happened with the Malpas batsmen scoring at will and the game in the balance right until the final overs when they eventually ran out of steam to finish on a highly commendable 232 for 8 giving Audlem a narrow 27 run victory. A fine game of cricket played in great spirit by both teams. Young Lauren Kenvyn was the star bowler finishing her 8 over allocation with fine figures of 3 for 21 to complete a great all round performance from her.

This Sunday Audlem are again at home. Their opponents this time are Wilmslow with a 1.00pm start.

John wainwright

Audlem cricket club