Another cracking weekend of cricket, the 1st's going down to a heart breaking 1 run defeat at Felling, but the 2nd's continued their amazing run with a 9 wicket victory over Gateshead Fell, there was also a welcome return for the West Tyne 3rd's who beat Newton. Unfortunately Sunday saw a much changed 2nd's lose their Banks Semi to Chester le Street, and the NEPL 3rd's lose heavily to Sacriston.
13th August - 1st XI v Felling (away) - NEPL Premier League - Premier Division - Phil Haves match report
Another glorious summer Saturday heralded the return of the win/lose orange ball with coloured kit section of fixtures with the First Eleven travelling to High Heworth Lane. Paul Leonard won the toss & decided to have a bat, a decision which initially looked questionable on what looked like a bowler friendly pitch as 3 early wickets for Max & 1 for Callum reduced the home side to 18/3 then 44/4. A brief recovery took the score to 79 before Joe Torre took the wicket of Eddie Hurst. Overseas Waqas Ali & Sebastian Allison the fashioned together a partnership of 65, with Ali being particularly watchful, before Mohsin had Allison caught at mid off for 46. Callum & Fin then took the last 4 wickets relatively cheaply as Felling were bowled out for 186. Callum 4-39, Max 3-39 the main wickets takers with 1 a piece for Joe, Mohsin & Fin.
186 appeared to be a challenging target to chase & even more so as we slumped to 4-3 in the face of quality seam bowling from the impressive Seb Allison & Elliot Fox. 4-3 soon became 24/4 & then 32/5 as both Fin & Dan departed quickly, the former trying to 'hoik' one to cow corner!
At this point it seemed to be only a matter of time before we were bowled out cheaply but the inform Phill Bell & Captain Pete had other ideas & started the rebuild. 41 were added before Belly was LBW to the nagging Paul Leonard who Phill admitted he got 'a bit stuck against'. Max came & went early & at 95/8 thinks were looking pretty bleak. As so often this season we showed grit & resilience with Pete leading from the front ably supported by Callum & the pair added 46 valuable runs before Callum was LBW for 22 - 141/9 - 46 needed as Torre strode to the crease. Pete reached a composed 50 off 74 balls & Torre began to play shots belying a number eleven the runs required steadily reduced. With Allison & Leonard bowled out Felling became less confident with every run scored & weren't helped when Mustard dropped Torre at slip. With 2 overs to go 8 required, 2 singles plus a Torre boundary took us to within 1 of the Felling total with Pete on strike. It was however heartbreak for the skipper, who had played brilliantly, managed & cajoled the lower order almost to the unlikeliest of victories, as with the field in the bat slipped in his hand and he skewed a slow looping delivery to point!..... A brilliant game of cricket unfortunately did not go our way on this occasion. Saturday sees us entertain Burnopfield at Denton Bank & hopefully a return to winning ways.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024294
13th August - 2nd XI v Gateshead Fell (home) - NEPL Premier League - Division 2 - Matty Hynd's match report
Warm day at the Hill saw the Hill lose the toss and The Fell elect to bat on hard, used centre wicket. Hunter and Kilpatrick started well getting the orange ball to seam and swing and The Fell were soon in trouble when Hunter removed one opener and Kilpatrick the other with a smart catch by Jones at slip, leaving the Fell 25/2. Kilpatrick then took a wonderful one handed catch at slip off Hunter to remove danger man Smith. Jones joined the attack and removed captain Elliott, leaving the Fell 33/4. The fell then built a small partnership of 30 before Safi removed Wake, 69/5. A flurry of wickets followed with runout without facing and a first ball duck for Arkle, left the Fell in trouble at 70/7. Bryan was still in and the only player to make double figures, however he was stumpted down the leg side for 35 off Safi and Safi then picked up the last 2 wickets quickly leaving the Fell 98 all out in 27.5 overs. Hunter 2/13, Kilpatrick 1/37, Jones 2/20 & Safi 4/23 taking the wickets.
We got of to the worst possible start losing Moore first ball, but this brought the inform McGregor who played positively and scored his first league 50 for the seconds. Hynd (38*) and McGregor (51*) taking us past the score in the 26th over. Another good win, giving us to 9 wins from the last 10! 3 of the top 4 all won so nothing much changed at the top of the league.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024704
13th August - 3rd XI v Newton (away) - West Tyne League - Chris Pounder's match report
After two concessions in a row the 3rd 11 travelled to Newton for a home game. After losing the toss and being asked to field the hill restricted Newton to 157/8 in 40 overs with the skipper returning figures of 3/11 , Max Tidmarsh 2/33, Taylor 2/37 and Rory 1/22.
Although wicketless Warren bowled excellent spells to back the bowlers at the other end conceding only 12 runs from his 7 overs.
In reply the hill started brightly bringing up 50 in the 10th over before losing Davey for 35. Max soo. Followed for 8 and Rory without scoring beforeWarren and Rash pushed the score on. Rash fell for 44 and Warren for 28 before Whitey (14) and Taylor (20) saw us to a 5 wicket win.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024704
Sunday 14th August - 2nd XI v Chester le Street (away) - Bank's Bowl Semi Final
The 2nd's suffered a rare defeat with a disappointing 5 wicket loss at Ropery Lane. We batted first and struggled to 175 all out, Rohan Aatif top scoring with 33. CLS chased down the score without any real alarm in the 34th over.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5462255
Sunday 14th August - 3rd XI v Sacriston (away) - NEPL Premier League - Sunday Division 1
Some promising performances from a young side with Hassan Ahmad scoring his maiden senior half century, with 52, Warren Poxon 44 and Rory Mustard 39 in a score of 186, chasing a huge 303, there was also 2 wickets each for Owen Blackburn, Warren Poxon and young Chris Pounder, and 1 each for Aaron Armstrong and Sam Stilwell. There was also a welcome return to the pitch for Paul 'Army' Armstrong who threw back the years and batted 5.
The match scorecard is available here https://benwellhill.play-cricket.com/website/results/5134499
