Milford Go Back to Scholes to Learn How to Win

Milford beat the rain and Scholes to get back to winning ways.

Before this weekend the Milford first team had been on a poor run of form, loosing 5 out of the last 6 games and the 6th had been a tie. This weeks opposition was Scholes who were promoted at the end of last season when they were Division 2 champions.

The weather forecast had been very poor all week in the run up to the game and it still wasn’t very good predicting heavy and possibly thundery showers later in the day around 5 o’clock.

Stuart Morley was back in the team ‘fresh’ from his 240 mile bike ride last week replacing Peter Batty. Martin Bramley came in for Billy Thompson and Steve Winspear was out for the first time trying to rest his injured knee he hurt in his ‘Game from Hell’ when we visited Garforth PC last Saturday. Apparently it had turned a lovely blue,purple, brown & black colour during the week.

Martin Bramley was quick to show he had lost none of that skill he showed when a youngster, sadly it was in the touch rugby game in the warm up before the match…. The oldies showing up the youngsters in the side with a demonstration of ‘TOTAL’ rugby, shame in doing so Martin pulled something that left him hobbling back to the changing room. He forgot he is no longer 21…..

A few years ago Scholes CC had the misfortune of their clubhouse burning down, it was never proved if it was by accident or some little scrotes. A mammoth fund raising effort by the cricket & football club and the whole community has enabled them to have a smashing new pavilion. A novel per-fabricated design is a vast improvement over the old one, been large, airy and bright. See the photograph which heads this report. Apparently the full works cost in the region of 100k.

Once again Milford skipper Paul Hebden won the toss and decided once again that we would try to chase down any total Scholes scored.

So out into the field we went, it was dry but a cool & blustery South wind made sitting out to watch not an option. The new score room in the pavilion was most welcome. Milford made the perfect start as Sean Nesbitt got a wicket with his first ball, a magnificent reflex catch above his head at point by Ben White. Another 2 in consecutive overs left Scholes reeling.

It wasn’t till Scholes opener Danusha Ranasinghe teamed up with Sultan Mehmood for the 4th wicket that they started to make any headway. The pair putting on 48 much needed runs. Mehmood certainly came out with the mindset of attack been the best form of defense.

The introduction of spinner Sam Thomas changed the game back in Milford’s favour, he claimed the wicket of Danusha in his 2nd over and then a double stirke in 19th over saw us take control of the game. It might have been earlier if Matty Paul had held on to a skier from Scott Smith, but credit to Matty he made amends later when he held on to a much harder chance off the same batsmen towards the end of the innings. Once again the ball climbing high into the sky, no one gave Matty a chance of claiming this one after the mess he had made of the first attempt. The wind had now picked up just to make the catch even harder but we should never have any doubt as Matty swallowed it up. Great catch.

Dan Ward came on to replace Sean to clear out the tail with a couple of wickets and Sam finished with his first 5 for of the season. Scholes all out for just 108 in 28 overs and critically just before 3 o’clock which meant if the weather forecast were correct would leave us around 90 mins before the rain came down.

Scholes presented us with very nice teas, a great selection of sandwiches and other savories along with this season’s must have, the cream & jam scone.

Stuart Morley & Martin Bramley opened the batting for Milford, Martin would have to hog all the strike if he was going to claim that illusive first century for the 1st team.

Oh well perhaps it wasn’t to be today, maybe the touch rugby had been a touch too strenuous, as Martin only lasted 5 balls before heading back to the changing room the proud owner of a duck.

Ben White replacing him and for once getting outscored by Stu, perhaps the advise given to him by the skipper had influenced this new mature style. In fact it was Stuart who was the first to hit a six, a beautiful timed shot that stuck in a tree at the other side of the road beyond the boundary.

Ben did pick up the pace later and knocked Scholes opening bowler Sultan Mehmood out of the attack with four boundaries in one over. Just when we thought we were going to witness Ben carry us to victory he picked out Chris Bradley to fall at 23.

Sean Nesbitt was next in and looking to the South the cloud was starting to build up, spurred on by this the batsmen started to pick up the pace. Sean in particular finding James Biscomb much to his liking. He milked him for 34 runs in just 3 overs to see us over the winning line just as the lightning flashed, the thunder boomed and the rain started to come down heavily.

So a much needed to win after a bruising couple of weeks for the 1st team. Some good individual performances in previous weeks not been quite enough to pinch us the win. Hopefully this will set us off on a good run as we finish off the first half of the season.

“The person that said winning isn’t everything, never won anything.” Mia Hamm