came from Fenton that it was torrential over there, there was standing water on the pitch and the forecast was terrible, the Headingley players who had made their own way over there said differently, but hey ho!

It was decided to partake in a quick net at Glen Road, but before that could be sorted Colonel Saunders had gleaned that St Chads had also been let down by friendly opposition and a 30 over friendly at Glen Road was agreed.

Skipper Mark Stelfox failed to guess which hand the opposition skipper had his lighter hidden in, and Chads opted to have a bat on a decent looking Glen Road track. Headingley opened up with Aussie man mountain Jeremy Everett and the new slim line Chris St Clair Whicker, it was a rare run out on grass for the Australian and it took him a little while to adjust to the slow, low Glen Road track, but gradually found his length and bowled a decent spell, Whicker was steaming in from the Kevin Manton End with enthusiasm and bowled some cracking deliveries interspersed with a few too many the openers were able to safely leave well alone.

Former Rishton player Ian Crutchley replaced Jezza and Stelfox came on for Whicker and the breakthrough soon followed Stelfox nipping one through the gate of Ali to clean bowl him. Nick Saunders replaced Stelfox and quickly got a wicket tempting the batsmen to chip up a catch to the skipper. Ian showed some promise with some good balls before being replaced by Shiru Maitra. Shiru claimed a wicket with his first ball tempting the Chads 1st teamer to cut only to see Stelfox pouch another one at backward point. Shiru finishing with 3-10 off 5 overs, Stelfox returned and claimed another two wickets thanks to a good tumbling catch by Chris St Clair Whicker over his shoulder and clean bowling Foggey with a nice in swinger to the left hander as St Chads finished on 111-8.

Despite a number of dropped catches and a few misfields Headingley were pretty content to restrict St Chads to 111.

Headingley opened their reply with Matt Greer and Jim Hinks, Jim departed quickly for a 'froz' as a ball rather stopped on him and he spooned up a catch, Ian Rogers joined Greer at the wicket and looked very comfortable but managed to keep finding the batsmen with his shots , Greer was looking composed and pushing the score along nicely before Ian was bowled for 6, Michael Knight sporting his new contact lenses didn’t last long falling for 1, quickly followed back to the hutch by Ian Crutchley.

Matt Greer and Chris St Clair Whicker moved Headingley along nicely, whilst Chris wasn’t at his fluent best, neither batsmen looked troubled before Matt tried tickling a straight one around the corner and he looked up to see Colonel Saunders finger of doom aloft. Jeremy Everett strode to the wicket in a purposeful manner and again Headingley appeared to be moving in the right direction, Jez hitting 2 x 6s and 3 x 4s as he collected 34 runs before spooning up a soft catch to the wicket keeper. Mark Stelfox entered the fray and quickly lost Whicker who fell to a very sharp caught and bowled, Stelfox went for 9, going for a maximum off the spinner that was caught just inside the boundary ropes, Saunders didn’t last long playing over one that was in the slot and getting bowled, and when Steve Manton called Steve Bindman for a single that Usain Bolt would have refused Headingley had subsided to 89 all out.

It was a useful hit out against Chads, played in a good spirit, but the performance left plenty to of room for improvement, the catching was poor, some of the ground fielding a bit shoddy, and we failed to chase down a very chaseable total on a slow, low but trustworthy track.

Obviously its better that this should happen in a friendly than in the league, but those areas will need to improve.

The main positives were Matt Greer looking assured with the bat, Jeremy Everett again doing well with the bat and Shiru Maitra picking up 3 wickets for just 10 runs.