(Sunday's) Cricket Report

(Sunday's) Cricket Report

Audlem again came out victorious in another close encounter on Sunday at The Gorse Croft. This time they won by the slender margin of just 5 runs in the 35 over contest.

Audlem chose to bat first with young opening batsman, Jake Topping ( 42 ) again taking centre stage despite losing fellow opener, Steve Ellsmore who failed to trouble the scorer formed productive partnerships with Irfan Shiek ( 24 ) and prolific Usman Ghani ( 51 retired not out ). Some tidy bowling from the youthful Malpas team kept a check on the scoring rate as the home team began to struggle for runs in the latter stages of the innings but a valuable 10 not out from Marcus Taylor helped to get the final score to a respectable 159 for 5 off the allotted overs.

Malpas's reply got off to the worst possible start with ever reliable Connor Howard snaring two victims in his first over and with fellow opening bowler Richard Irving getting in on the act in the fifth over of the innings the visitors were in disarray with the score on 20 for 3 but a fine innings from young S. Faithfull who stroked a delightful 49 before being snapped up by debutant keeper Jake Topping off the bowling of Navid put them back on track. A close finish was looming with the experienced M.Parry ( 39 not out ) at the crease but some tidy bowling at the death restricted the flow of runs. With 6 runs required off the final ball the batsmen only managed a single to give the hosts a very narrow victory.

Next Sunday Audlem make the short journey to Wistaston.

John Wainwright

Audlem Cricket Club