After a week of no fourth team cricket for Mersey, the team arrived at the Bredbury St. Marks ground fresh and excited, eager to get back onto the field and into the groove of playing again.
After Bredbury won the toss and decided to put Mersey into bat, the openers Gary Critten and Aman Raza were greeted by a very small boundary and a fairly tame track, accompanied by a fast outfield. Despite the pitch seemingly favouring the batsman, it seemed the week out of cricket had an adverse effect on the Mersey side, as an early mix up between the openers had Gary unfortunately run out first ball of the innings. This brought Sami to the crease, who was also dismissed early, caught behind off a good piece of bowling. In at four was Billy Hayward, who was trapped LBW first ball, leaving Aman stranded helplessly at the other end, having just watched three wickets fall. The Bredbury opening bowlers also deserve credit, as their tight line and consistency immediately put Mersey onto the back foot. In came Hassan Waleed, possibly wondering why he was coming to the crease after only a few overs. However, he and Aman managed to stick around for a while and produced a gutsy yet short-lived partnership, as Aman was soon clean bowled by a quality Yorker which pegged back middle stump and sent him trudging back to the changing room after putting 12 crucial runs onto the Mersey scoreboard. The sixth batsman to make his way to the middle was Aengus Laverty, very positive and on the hunt for runs, striking the ball powerfully and the first Mersey batsman to really put the Bredbury bowlers under some pressure. Hassan was the next to be dismissed after a valuable little knock which had helped instil some stability into the Mersey innings.
The captain James Wickham was now at the crease and was quickly bowled by a nice delivery from one of their opening bowlers. In came Patrick Glare at 7 who from the outset looked comfortable and was clearly on the same wavelength as Aengus at the other end, as he started to nudge some nice shots early on, whilst Aengus did his best to put the ball to the rope at every opportunity. Finally, after a less than consistent start, the Mersey innings was beginning to look like it could be on the up. A few overs into these two building a solid partnership, both batsman opened up even more, displaying more confidence, and looking to dominate the bowling at every opportunity, putting away the bad balls with some superbly timed shots all around the ground. Gaining ground every over, they started to really kick on and look for more runs, hitting some powerful shots combined with elegant touches, gaining runs very fluently. Sadly this high scoring and vital contribution came to a close when the two pushed for a quick single and Aengus was sharply run out, falling just short of his 50, making a skilful and entertaining 46 runs, 32 of which came in boundaries.

Soon after Patrick fell to a catch when playing a lofted shot to the on side, also finishing agonisingly close to a half century, making a crucial 48 involving some of his his trademark elegant shots and beautiful timing. Now at the crease were two relatively new yet well capable batsman, Ali Raza and Saad Zahid. Both attacking left-handers, they did exactly what was needed, with Ali playing more aggressive shots, whilst Saad protected the valuable last wicket at the other end; these two were pushing Mersey ever closer to a respectable score. The end came after 46 overs when Ali was caught after flicking a ball to the square leg fielder. Mersey finished on 141 which certainly pleased the captain and the majority of the rest of the team, considering the questionable start. Special plaudits go to the partnership of Aengus and Patrick.

After tea Mersey returned to the field with a hopeful attitude ready to defend the total they’d set. The opening bowlers were Billy and Aman, a left arm seamer and a leg spinner who were clearly chosen by skipper James in the hope of adding variety when defending this modest total. Billy opening spell was decent yet inconsistent, bowling a mix of good deliveries and poor balls which the batsmen capitalised on, dispatching him for several boundaries early on. At the other end Aman was keeping it tight, bowling in good areas with the odd ball taking an extra bit of turn, and he was getting the batsman to play and miss quite often. Eventually in the final over of his spell Billy managed to bowl one of the openers when he missed a full and straight delivery. On to replace Billy was another left arm seamer in Saad, who bowled with real pace and a few of his deliveries beat the batsman all ends up. Replacing Aman interestingly was another leg spinner in Ali who made the remaining opener play and miss on numerous occasions until he finally got his man when a wild swing to the leg side resulted in Aman taking a brilliant, diving catch at cow corner.

Unfortunately for Mersey, Bredbury were able to wrap it up with 7 wickets and 20 overs remaining, despite the visitors putting in a good effort in the field and with ball in hand. If Mersey had done themselves a bit more justice with the bat (excluding Pat and Aengus) they would have been in a much better position to defend their total.

Report by Billy Hayward