Leek CC v Audlem Sunday X1 24 June

On Sunday Audlem's cricketers made their way into the Staffordshire Moorlands to Highfields, the picturesque ground that is the home of their opponents' Leek CC. It has been the venue for many Staffordshire County games and has hosted the occasional visit of neighbouring Derbyshire for selected games.

One look at the huge expanse of parched,close cropped grass that was the outfield and a lovingly manicured flat wicket set in the middle of a pristine square had the team praying that today's skipper' Simon Swift would win the toss to enable Audlem to take first knock in the glorious sunshine. One look at Simon's face on his return from the coin ceremony told it's own story so Audlem took to the field bedecked in their sun hats and shades with sun cream applied in abundance to any bare exposed flesh.

Audlem were prepared to be chasing a large total in such perfect batting conditions but that is not the way the game evolved. The visitors soon started making inroads into the host's batting line-up with the aid of 2 run outs in the first 10 overs. Both the dismissals were batsmen that could have posted large scores who play regularly in Leek's Saturday first X1 in the Premier division of the NSSC Cricket League. The initiative was now passed to Audlem's bowlers who stuck to a disciplined line and length aided by some fine ground fielding and catching. The main obstacle was the seasoned no.7 bat, Rob Haydon but he eventually ran out of partners with the score on 95 all out whilst being left high and dry on 33 not out.

The successful bowlers who toiled in the sunshine were :-

• A. Naveed: 8 overs 1 maiden 33 runs 1 wicket
• Neil Humphries: 8.3 overs 4 maidens 14 runs 3 wickets
• Shaj Ali Jnr: 7 overs 3 maidens 22 runs 1 wicket
• Simon Swift: 7 overs 3 maidens 18 runs 2 wickets Audlem's batsmen strode to the wicket after the tea interval with 48 overs available to surpass the modest total set by their hosts. It soon became apparent that the task would not be as straight forward as first thought with only 16 runs on the board the visitors were 2 wickets down both clean bowled by young 1st X1 paceman Rory Owen Lewis Haydon ( Quite a mouthfull) . A Naveed and Atiq Hashmi managed to steady the ship and get the visitors back on course for a routine victory but after a fine 68 run partnership both were dismissed in quick succession which began a flurry of further wickets. Audlem managed to eventually secure the maximum points on offer with a victory with 7 wickets down in just 18 overs. Naveed scored 35 and Atiq Hashmi scored 33

Next week Audlem play hosts at The Gorse Croft to high flying Longton . 2:30pm start.

John Wainwright
(* Audlem CC)

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