A Tale of Two Halves

A warm muggy afternoon saw us travel to league leaders Bilton in Ainsty. Skipper Jimmy Liddle once again won the toss and seeing a surprisingly green and moist wicket decided to take advantage and asked the home side to bat.

For the second week running Andrew Clark opened the bowling and bowled with real pace and accuracy. Probably it was even better than last weeks performance but it was his opening partner Dan White who made the initial break through, dismissing both openers to leave Bilton struggling on 23 for 2.

A change of tactics by Jimmy this week saw him using his full bowling attack in short bursts, and the change to the more experienced duo of Adam Gee and veteran John Cain again brought success with Adam collecting a couple of wickets, it could have been more had catches gone to hand in his eventful opening over. Bilton now well under the cosh at 53-4.

Bilton No.4 Adam Fairhurst got the home teams batting finally under way with a attacking 44 off just 39 balls, in the process knocking Steve Ryder out of the attack. The switch back to Andy Clark from the bottom end proved to be the perfect choice as he beat Fairhurst for pace to skittle his wickets. This time Andy's four overs gave him 2 wickets for just 5 runs.

It looked like we might bowl Bilton out for a similar total to the match earlier in the season but their wicket keeper captain Rob Wilson and Nick Briggs dug in for the 8th wicket. They resisted the best Milford could throw at them for 14 overs and put on 29 vital runs. Dan White finally broke the partnership trapping Briggs lbw, not that the batsmen agreed with the umpire’s decision and the Bilton pavilion took a bit of a hammering as he walked back in.

Dan quickly wrapped up the Bilton innings to finish with best figures of the day 4 for 33 though mention must be made of Andy Clark's 3 for 19 off 10 overs, his best performance of the season by a long way.

So off for tea with just 133 to chase and 54 overs in which to get them. Not the best spread we have seen, the selection a bit limited and once again only shop bought cakes and buns. Oh well that's what you get for been spoilt at Milford I suppose.

Still warm & muggy for our innings and with the sky clearing it was turning into a glorious evening. Any plans to take things steady from the start were soon blown away by Bilton's opening bowler Michael White. The tall pace bowler soon made mincemeat out of our top order with only skipper Jimmy able to keep him out. By the time keeper Paul Hebden was out to a ripper of a delivery, which lifted to catch his glove and be caught by his opposite number, Milford were 31 for 5 and staring defeat in the face.

Our only chance was if Jimmy could stay in and somehow shepherd the tail into giving him the strike. Jimmy battled valiantly and made another 50 off 77 balls but was running out of partners. Andy Clark battled to stay with him but became Michael White's six victim to leave us 75-8.

Adam Gee came in and at last we managed to form a batting partnership. He & Jimmy put on 34 runs to edge us closer and closer to a unlikely victory. You could sense the Bilton fielders getting nervous and they started to mis-field and drop a few chances. Even Nick Briggs stopped his constant berating of the umpires once he had committed a howler in the field.

Unfortunately the tail couldn't hang in there to get Jimmy enough of the strike to win us the game and we were all out for a battling 111 in the 32nd over. Jimmy left undefeated for a best of the day 64.