Heaton Mersey 3rd vs Maple & Compstall 3rd

Game One - Sunday 18th of April 2021

Heaton Mersey won the toss and elected to bowl first and made early inroads into the Marple top order with wickets for skipper Peter Lewis and his opening partner Ishy Khan. Credit also to Akhil Kamath for a good catch at mid on off the skipper,'s bowling. Marple then started to rebuild the innings with some positive running and a few lusty blows to the boundary from Matt Leech. Mersey then looked to regain control with a change of bowling with the introduction of Waqar Rashid who picked up two wickets in his four overs which brought Mersey back into the game. Marple finished with 127-5 off their twenty overs, the stand out with the bat was Matt Leech with 58 who was well supported by the captain Will Darby who got 35. Mersey bowlers performed well in their first run out of the season and returned the below figures: 

Ishy Khan 4-0-27-1
Peter Lewis 3-0-11-1
Dipan Shah 2–0-18-0
Saad Zahid 4-0-19-1
Waqar Rashid 4-0-13-2
Akhil Kamath 3-0-29-0 

Mersey then began their pursuit of Marple’s score with the new T20 partnership of the experienced Rob Lisney supported by the more youthful wicket keeper batsmen Ben Fowler. Mersey showed some early promise with some good running between the wickets and Rob finding the boundary at ease. Rob was then dismissed for a breezy 14 from ten deliveries with three 4s. Then as a result of some tight Marple bowling the run rate begin to climb and Mersey begin to lose regular wickets with Dave Flisk falling for 8 followed by Ben for 9 and then Akil Saleem for 1. The procession of wickets was briefly stopped by Jonathan Hill who was making his return appearance for the Mersey after a three year stint away exploring the world of American football on the British university circuit. He finished with 19 off twenty five deliveries including two 4s. Dipan Shah was soon also back in the shed with 3. It looked like Mersey were then up against it with the required rate climbing and the number of balls left decreasing rapidly. Some lower order positive batting from Waqar and Akhil got Mersey within touching distance with 12 required from the final over; they sadly fell 5 runs short of the victory target, Waqar finishing with 22 off twenty balls including two 4s. Akhil top scored with an excellent cameo of 26 off twelve balls including two 4s and two glorious straight 6s. A stand out bowler for Marple who put the pressure on the Mersey batters was Samuel Stretton who put in figures of 4–0-24-3.

So a good first game of the season from the third team with a good team effort and plenty to build on for the coming season. They return to home soil next Sunday the 25th of April against Stockport Trinity in another T20 with the first ball at 15:00 hours.

https://heatonmersey.play-cricket.com/website/results/4782581