It was always going to happen at some point. This week, following several bouts of torrential rain, the Formby pitch didn’t, understandably, look itself when the covers came off on Saturday morning. It was still pretty hard, but had a greenish tinge and felt a little damp on top. It was surely a day to win the toss and have a bowl, but, as is his wont (or possibly won’t), Formby’s captain failed to make the toss he wanted and Orrell duly won and elected to field. It was his 9th failure in 15 league attempts this season!
After a maiden from Khan to Ollie Sutton, the second over proved disastrous, as once James Seward had got off the mark with a single from Patel’s third ball, Sutton got a pretty innocuous leg-side delivery that he managed to deflect with his hip straight onto his leg stump. Tatenda Taibu didn’t fare much better, failing to properly arrest the forward momentum of his first ball, which dropped down and bounced into his stumps. 1-2 was pretty soon 11-3 as Seward decided not to play at another Patel delivery which clipped his off stump and Formby were 11-3 after 6 overs.
The ball was tending to keep rather low on occasions, and not coming through, making batting awkward, but Sam Oldham hit a couple of fours in the next over, before he and David Atkinson each faced a maiden. Atkinson got off the mark from his 17th ball, with a six off Patel over extra cover,, but both batsmen departed with the total on 36, first Oldham was bowled by Khan for 19, then Atkinson was caught off Patel for 7 and half the side were out inside 14 overs, leaving Jason Underwood and Ben Aitchison to try to put things right.
They progressed watchfully, but managing to punish a few loose balls (it appeared that Underwood actually played defensive shots to a number of balls and even left some completely, but this was probably an illusion), and added 60 in the next 14 overs, as Khan was replaced by Jones after bowling 9 overs for 32 from the hockey pitch end, and Heeley replaced Patel after he’d completed 12 overs for 35 runs at the other end. Formby’s hopes of a significant recovery perished when Aitchison failed to block a Jones delivery that shot through to bowl him for 27, bringing in Elliot Ketteringham, in almost exclusively defensive mode. Another 11 runs were added (4 of them byes) before Underwood, who’d just hit Heeley for four, drove loosely to cover and departed for 32. George Burrows replaced him very briefly, missing his only ball, a straight one, to be given out leg before at 107-8. That was a wicket maiden, and another 4 maidens followed as Sabbir Patel and his captain found stroke play nigh impossible. Ketteringham, who had managed just one single from his first 28 balls (surely a personal “best”) and had survived a straightforward chance to slip from his 22nd, then mishit one straight into the hands of backward point. at 111 -9 and a wide and a single to last man, Dewi Jones constituted the remainder of scoring for the innings, as Patel was bowled by Heeley for 4, closing the innings at a paltry 113. 95 of the total came from Oldham, Underwood, Aitchison and extras (17), the rest of Formby’s batsmen (and bowlers) contributing a miserable 18 between them.
With a strong breeze and relatively warm weather, the pitch was drying out, and the frequency with which the ball was keeping low had diminished, though timing was still problematical. Even so, Formby’s attack was capable of doing serious damage on such a surface, and the meagre total might take some getting. Patel (4-35 from 12 overs), Jones (3-24 from 10) and Heeley (2-13 from 7) had decent returns for their efforts with the ball.
Aitchison’s opening over was unusually wayward, for him – he started with a couple of no-balls and a wide that eluded the diving Seward to add 5 to the total, but this evidently had the effect of disorienting the batsman, Minhaj Bhada, though he’d have done well to survive the next ball, which shot along the ground from short of a length into his pads and he hardly glanced at the umpire before trudging off, lbw.
Dewi Jones appeared to be adopting similar tactics, as his second ball was also a no-ball. He declined to repeat the dose, but then ended his over with a snorter that refuted Patel’s rash advance down the pitch and made mincemeat of his stumps. That was 11-2 without a run off the bat!
The first earned run was a four by Mottram off the first ball of Aitchison’s second over, and after 6 overs the total stood on 26-2. Jones’s 4th over wasn’t one of his best, as he conceded 3 boundaries and a two from another no-ball. Aitchison now gave way to Burrows, whose last ball of his first over was too quick for Everett and flattened his off stump at 45-3. Ketteringham then kept faith in Jones, and must have wondered if he’s done the right thin when Mottram thumped the first ball for four, but after a single, he had Baybutt caught behind by Seward and Formby were well in the game at 50-4.
Orrell skipper Mottram had been the architect of the Orrell innings in the previous league encounter, and so it proved again, as Heeley managed to stay with him, contributing 10 from 34 balls as 40 were added for the 5th wicket (Mottram reaching 50 from 58 balls in the meantime), before Aitchison bowled him in the 4th over of his second spell: 90-5.
Patel had come on at the Hockey Pitch end after 5 economical overs from Sutton (for just 7 runs), and he induced Riley to drive one in the air, well caught by Taibu at short extra cover at 93-6. Formby needed to remove Mottram quickly, to preserve their chances They did, but it was too late when Burrows finally got through his defences to bowl him at 63 with a quick one, as only 3 runs were needed to win, and that didn’t prove a problem, the target being reached just as the final hour was due to be called, for a 3-wicket win.
It would probably have been a different story had Orrell had to bat first. Rumour has it that the Formby captain is to be sent on an advanced tossing refresher course in the close season.