Audlem at the double versus Mellor

Audlem completed an emphatic double over 8-man Mellor on Saturday at Gorse Croft and remain 7 points behind 2nd place Rylands in the Cheshire Alliance.

After a 10 wicket victory in the reverse fixture earlier this season, Stanway knew it was a must win game against the struggling visitors as the promotion race begins to hot up. Mcilveen and Banfield replaced Ali Sr and Ali Jr from the side that drew with Styal last weekend.

Mellor's lack of numbers did little to dampen their spirit and your correspondent found their players to be thoroughly decent chaps in both games. Given a full team Mellor could well have taken this game the distance.

As it was, Audlem took just two hours to claim 25 points with 64 overs left in the match.

After winning the toss and choosing to bat first the visitors lost Baythorpe (4) early to a Simon Swift catch off the bowling off Mcilveen. Unfortunately for Swift, it was set to be all downhill from there as his opening 5 over spell yielded no wickets and 41 runs as Mellor counter attacked their way 40-1.

Sam Smith, clearly unfamiliar with his namesake's popular hit 'Stay With Me', ran out the remaining opening McAllister for 21 just as the pair appeared to be accelerating.

Ultimately, it was the introduction of Neil Humphries, replacing Swift, which turned the game in Audlem's favour. His first over was a double wicket maiden, removing Smith (26) lbw and RIley for a duck to add to Bailey's quacker the over before which gave Mcilveen his second victim.

At 53-5 Skipper Nick Marsland wasn't going down without a fight and he hit Audlem's premier seam bowler for several boundaries but it proved fruitless as his side stumbled to 79 all out in 15.3 overs with Humphries claiming 4-8.

The sides turned straight round and Rothwell strode out with a handicapped Stanway intent on making light work of the chase. The two biggest noses at the club were instructed to run on seperate sides of the wicket to avoid a collision after an unsavoury incident last year near Manchester Airport involving the Concorde Museum.

John Wainwright's excellent ground maintenance meant the svelte Rothwell was rarely required to run anything other than a leisurely 1 as he strode serenly to an unbeaten 39 at quicker than a run a ball.

Stanway's quickfire 41 was halted with just 5 runs left for victory as Audlem cruised to their target inside 10 overs to take 25 points.

After the game Stu Stanway told us he was pleased with the win: "It keeps us up there with the pacesetters and we're hitting form at just the right time of the season after a slow start". On his injury he said: "Obviously it was disappointing to lose 2 fingers last week and I've lost my slog to cow from outside off but I look at Qhama and realise there are always people worse off than me."

Next week Audlem visit table toppers Maritime in the crunchiest of crunch games and with the Phoenix League now over players are reminded nets will now be commencing once again on Thursday nights.

With Richard Wilson entering his final few weeks at the club before jetsetting to a hair transplant clinic in Madrid, the club is now taking bets on how many times he uses the words 'essentially' and 'basically' in his remaining games.

Audlem are also in negotiations to compensate Styal Cricket Club after one of their benches was vandalised by Tom Kural in the away fixture last weekend. Early estimates suggest the incident, which was reported on North West Tonight, looks set to cost the club in the region of 5 figures. A spokesman was unavailable for comment as AudlemOnline went to press.

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