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An excellent victory was posted last night over Division One side West End, at a sunny Heaton Medicals.
Captain Miller had assembled a strong team to give the underdogs a fighting chance of an upset and having won the toss, he elected to bat.
Messr's Ward and Miller got the innings off to a steady start until Miller was out for 13 bringing the in-form Duncan Scott to the wicket. Ward followed shortly after for a brisk 17, bringing Barry Halford to the crease.
Some excellent stroke play from the two South Africans saw the scoring rate continue in excess of 10 runs an over and it was soon clear that we were giving ourselves a chance of victory.
Both Scott and Halford maintained their excellent form until Scott fell for 45 in sight of successive midweek 50's. Halford saw the innings to a conclusion (35 not out) aided by some meaty hits from Luke Mitchell and Paddy Meredith at the end of the innings. 148-4 from 14. Excellent.
Joe Fox and Paddy opened the innings, bowling tightly and initially keeping the rate down. Their openers however, had to get on with it and it wasn't long before the ball started disappearing over the boundary rope. Meredith bowled one of the openers bringing their skipper to the crease.
Right from the off, his intent was clear and West End were well in touch with the rate at the half way mark. Waite came on and had an excellent first over. Unfortunately it went downhill from there and the big fella went for a rather expensive 37 from 3 overs.
It was clear that removing the big hitter was the key to victory. Unfortunately our catching didn't help, with several chances shelled (none particularly straight-forward) much to a fired-up Barry's chagrin.
The re-introduction of Paddy and then Barry turned the game. Although the boundaries were still coming, wickets began to tumble with Paddy taking 2 in quick succession as the scoring began to temporarily slow. Barry also got stuck into the middle order taking 4 including the key wicket of the big-hitting batsman shortly after he had passed 50.
The game could still have gone either way with West End requiring 13 from the last over. Barry bowled superbly. 7 were required from 3 balls but they were restricted to only 1, giving us victory by 6 runs and a place in the next round against Cooksons. Tremendous!
Man of the Match - Barry for his excellent allround contribution. Honourable mention to Duncan for his batting.
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