2nd XI chalk up first win

Audlem 2nd XI gained their first victory of the season on Saturday in a hard fought encounter at the Gorse Croft with their opponents from the Wirral, Old Parkonians, as they won by 5 wickets. 

With a grey overcast sky threatening to enshroud the day's proceedings, a rain soaked outfield and a soft green wicket skipper John Wainwright was hoping for some much needed luck at the coin ceremony, but of course the 10p landed the wrong way up as usual.  However, to everyone's surprise Parkonians' skipper decided to take first knock.  This certainly wasn’t a wise choice for him as he was the opening bat and was dismissed in the first over by young Chris Hardwick.  Despite Audlem's sterling efforts, the visitors’ next couple of wickets gradually started to amass a decent total but, with the dismissal of the cultured Peter Fearon bowled by Roy Wild for 35, things started to swing back in Audlem's favour.  With Wild bowling in tandem with fellow spinner Lyndon Woodcock the batsmen were finding it increasingly difficult to get the ball away and, as often happens in such circumstances, panic sets in and the last four wickets all fell with the score on 128. To make matters worse for Parks they surrendered four unused overs to their grateful hosts.  These were to prove crucial in the final analysis. Wild, who bowled unchanged, finished with splendid figures of 4 for 44 and Woodcock’s equally impressive spell yielded 4 for 33. Hardwick bowled a fine early spell and had the batsmen in all kinds of trouble on more than one occasion and was inadequately rewarded by 1 for 40.

A good opening stand of 48 between Zar Ahmed and Steve Broomfield paved the way for victory with Broomfield eventually holing out for the highest score of the day, a fine individual 37.  The middle order batsmen had to increase the run rate with Phil Backas (20) Paul Thorburn (13) and Wainwright (21) finding the boundary rope on a number of occasions.  Backas’ innings contained some of the best shots of the day.  This capped off a fine performance by him as he had earlier taken over the wicket keeping duties and performed admirably.  The game was won with only eight balls remaining with Danny Thorburn (13 not out) and Lyndon Woodcock (3 not out) at the crease taking the score to 129 for 5, to complete a fine win against good opponents.

Audlem gained 25 points for their endeavours and Old Parkonians 9.  This moved Audlem off the bottom of the Division 4 into seventh place, whilst Old Parkonians remain in third place.

On Saturday the 2nd XI travel to Warrington to take on sixth-place Appleton 3rd XI.

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