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3rd XI v Romiley

3rd XI v Romiley

Tim Humpage31 Jul 2018 - 07:10
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3rd XI v Romiley

22/7/18 Match Report - Heaton Mersey vs Romiley​​

Mersey were put into bat by the Romiley skipper and the team was hoping for another good batting performance after scoring 190+ in their last 4 matches. However, runs were hard to come by for Alishan and Shabaz as the opposition bowlers bowled tight lines and the pitch offered plenty of variable bounce, one of the openers bowling 4 consecutive maidens and 6 maidens in his ten over spell. After 18 overs Mersey were 33-0 but then in the 19th over the skipper got the breakthrough bowling Shabaz for 20. In came Usman off the back of a brilliant century the week before and immediately looked in the mood dispatching his third ball for 6. One brought two for Romiley and Alishan was caught for 12 bringing in Mo Shafiq.

Mersey then suffered a collapse as Usman chipped one up to cover for a brief 11 and Mo and Sharjeel were both bowled without troubling the scorers. This brought together Mark and Junaid who stopped the collapse momentarily as Mersey got some much-needed runs. Mark fell for 6 caught at midwicket. Taylor and Junaid batted positively until Junaid, who batted well for his 21, gloved one onto his helmet which was caught by the keeper, no one seemed interested until Junaid walked. Joe Glare came in to meet Taylor looking to try and take Mersey to a competitive score, but it didn’t last long as Taylor nicked behind for 7 and Joe caught for 0 trying to pull a suspect high full toss. At 84-9 Mersey were in trouble but some very good batting from Ismael (23*) helped by Pete (4*) saw the game through to the 40 overs and Mersey ended on 114-9.

After tea Mersey were looking to get some early wickets to put them right back in the game and it came in the second over as Mark got the batsmen to nick to Mo Shafiq who took a very good catch diving to his right. Runs came easier for the Romiley batsmen but not without luck with a couple of chances put down behind the wicket at keeper and slip. Momentum changed in the 8th over as the Romiley captain was caught and bowled by Mark for 28. Next ball… wicket. The number 4 pulled Mark to Junaid at square leg who calmly caught it one handed. Mark was on a hattrick, but it was safely left outside off. The batter survived the hattrick ball but next ball his leave wasn’t quite as well judged as it hit off stump. A promising score of 40-1 had turned into 40-4. Soon to be 47-5 as the number 6 spooned it up to Sharjeel off the bowling of Joe. He then got two more in the last 2 balls of his spell the number 3 caught at point and then the number 8 bowled. That left Romiley 54-7, but some big hitting got them to 82. Pete then got the breakthrough the number 9 finding Taylor at mid-on. Then Ismael took the big wicket of the number 7 bowled for 23 and Mersey were a wicket away with Romiley 89-9. It didn’t take long for Ismael to wrap things up, a simple catch at point to finish the game. A very strong bowling performance after a tricky first innings gave Mersey their second win on the bounce in very different batting conditions than last week. Credit to Ismael for some crucial runs at the end of our innings giving Mersey a big enough total to defend and the game could’ve been very different without them.

MOTM- Mark for his 7-0-25-4 and crucial 3 wicket over which turned the game on its end and gave Mersey some much needed wickets and without them we wouldn’t have stood much of a chance.

Report by Joe Glare

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