1s Match Report vs Bredbury St Marks
On an overcast Saturday, the Mersey boys were looking to continue their rich vein of form against Bredbury after a brilliant win at Bunbury last week. With skipper Laverty, having the met office making his decision at the toss a little more interesting.
Mersey won the toss and elected to bowl first for only the 2nd time this season and with rain forecast later in the day, it looked like an interesting call on what was a good-looking Mersey track. Bredbury opened with the experience of Stockdale and Carr, Marshall and Rashid bowled good line and length and it turned out to be a great battle. Mersey finally made a breakthrough with Marshall getting Carr for 13 and quickly after Rashid getting Woodall for a second ball duck. With the score at 45-2, the introduction of Singh after a great bowling spell against Bunbury. Singh continued his great form making headways in the Bredbury batting line up picking up 4 wickets from his 11 over spell. Waqar Rashid also contributed with 1-23 off 8 overs with some great spin bowling. Usher and Stockdale put a very useful partnership of 64 until Marshall came back on to discuss Usher for 31. Standout batsmen for Bredbury was Stockdale finishing on an unbeaten 85 from 116 balls. Bredbury finished on a respectable 177.
After a quick bite to eat, Mersey skipper Laverty opted to open with the Marshall and Ainscough after Alishan taking a blow to the head in the field. Laverty’s decision looked to be a great one as Ainscough looked to be back to his elegant self, although using a cracked bat was scoring freely and some excellent running got Mersey off to a flyer with the 50-partnership coming up from 12 overs. Marshall continued his good form with some solid boundary hitting before bringing up his 50 from 52 balls and Ainscough following shortly after bringing up his 50 and making him the 8th Mersey player to score a half century this season.
At drinks, Mersey were 127-0 and looking to take advantage of the wet ball and finish off in style with Marshall on 73 not out and Ainscough on 55 not out. Shortly after drinks there was a downfall of rain and the umpires decided after a few showers it was time to get the covers on. 30 minutes passed and the rain had stopped, a revised target of 146 from 37 overs. Marshall and Ainscough made quick inroads into the revised total and needed only 2 overs to get to the total with Marshall finishing the game with back-to-back boundaries to bring the score to 149-0 and a big 15 points for the Mersey boys with Trinity beating Northwich to extend there lead to 32 points at the top of the table. The opening partnership from Marshall and Ainscough was the highest 1st wicket opening partnership for the 1st team since the start of play cricket with Marshall finishing on an unbeaten 85 from 73 balls and Ainscough scoring 55 not out from 77 balls.
Thank you as always to our scorer Oli and the Mersey boys looking to continue there winning form against Lymm next week.
