1st XI Beat High-Flying Whitley Hall

Wickersley Old Village 236 for 7 J Lowe 61

Whitley Hall 219ao S Chatterton 55; I Afzal 5-54

Whitley Hall slumped to the hotspot 3rd place in the Championship after their third defeat in four weeks, this time at the hands of Wickersley Old Village at Baxter Field. Wickersley batted first and openers Haidar Jahangir scored 31 and Richard Harrison 48. Shaajhan Younis followed this with 30 and skipper Jordan Lowe smashed his way to 61 to enable a Wickersley final total of 236 for seven. Greig Batty ended with an analysis of four for 63.

Whitley lost early wickets for few runs, with Jordan Lowe taking one of the catches of the season. He took a stunning one handed catch above his head after a sharply rising bouncer had taken the batsmen's glove. A 104 run third wicket stand by stumper Sam Chatterton (55) and skipper Jim Tasker (40) took them to 137 for 2. However both batsmen were back in the pavilion with the addition of just one more run before a stand of 52 between Longhurst & Batty looked to have sealed the match for the home side. he removal of both these batters in quick succession then led to a collapse and a flurry of late wickets as Whitley fell short by 17 runs at 219 all-out.

South African Johan Bothma bowled well to claim four for 65 but the main instigator of Whitley’s downfall was Iftikhar Afzal, who claimed a hat trick on his way to an excellent five for 54.