What a weekend in North East sport, Newcastle into the Champions League (again), Sunderland getting promoted and Taylor Matthews getting his first century for the Hill against Matfen in the NTCL. In addition the 1st's claimed their second league away victory in consecutive weeks, this time over a strong Seaham Harbour team, and Matty Hynd's NEPL 3rd's beat Gateshead Fell, unfortunately the only casualty were the 2nd's who lost heavily to local rivals Newcastle Cricket Club, read on for all the info...
NEPL Division 1 - 1st XI v Seaham Harbour (a) - Won by 6 wickets - Match Report by Phil Haves
Saturday saw us continue our good form with a comfortable victory at one of our main rivals and another of the pre season favourites for promotion Seaham Harbour.
Belly continued his run of winning the toss and asked the home side to have a bat. Callum and Max again opened the bowling with Callum claiming an early wicket removing the dangerous Dan Shurben LBW. Max continued his impressive bowling with the new ball completing his 9 over spell for only 25 runs. Opener Gale and former Durham man Burnham added 49 until Sam was introduced to the arrack and removed Burnham caught by Callum for 26. Wickets then began to fall at regular intervals as Lee with 4-22 and Sam 3-15 rattled through the last 5 Harbour wickets for only 21 runs. Home Captain Pattison was the only batter to offer much resistance with a defiant 36.
Set a target on only 132 to win Rory and Belly went about their business pretty efficiently scoring at a good rate with a second consecutive half century opening stand. Belly was particularly effecting putting the bowlers pressure using his feet to the slower bowlers and turning over the strike whilst Rory was particularly punishing on anything loose. Belly was caught at slip for 21 with the score on 69 by which point the damage was done for the home side. Rory went on to complete his maiden First Team League half century reaching 63 off 74 balls (7x4 & 2x6) until he was dismissed with the score on 106. After Adam was adjudged LBW for 10, Pete (8no) and Brij (10no) saw us through to a comfortable win and 24 points on the road for the second consecutive week.
Saturday sees the start of the red ball win/lose/draw series of games and we return to NBMS Denton Bank for a fixture against Seaham Park when we hope to bring our good recent form back to HQ.
1st XI NEPL Scorecard v Seaham Harbour (a)
NEPL Division 2 - 2nd XI v Newcastle (h) - Lost by 88 runs - Match Report by Michael Maclauchlan
Following a delayed start to the match, we put Newcastle in to bat on what looked to be a challenging wicket. For the majority of the innings we bowled well and restricted them to four-an-over, but they kept wickets in hand and towards the end accelerated with some powerful batting helped by some poor fielding. This took them to a score of 210-6 from their 39 overs that felt over par, with three wickets for Peter Jones and one each for Warren Poxon, Michael Maclauchlan and Gabriel Mellor.
In the second innings, Newcastle bowled the right lines and lengths to take advantage of the difficulties of the pitch and made it challenging to score runs, with us being behind the run rate from the off. A combination of good deliveries and poor dismissals saw us slump to 62-6, with Warren Poxon’s 21 the highest score of the innings. Late cameos from Jack Hutt, Aaron Armstrong, Liam Hynd and Peter Jones took us to a slightly more respectable total of 122-9 at the end of our 39 overs, but it was still a heavy defeat. It was a disappointing result, but some positives can be taken from the way that we bowled in the first part of their innings against one of the in-form teams in the league.
2nd XI NEPL Scorecard v Newcastle (h)
NTCL Divison 5 West - 3rd XI v Matfen (h) - Lost by 4 wickets - Chris Pounder's Captains Report
The NTCL 3’s were at home again for the visit of Matfen 2’s at the weekend and lost by 4 wickets.
Having lost the toss and being out in the one bright spot of the innings was a magnificent first senior ton for Taylor Matthews. Taylor carried his bat for 101 which included 13 fours, 2 sixes and one smashed club house window.
Despite Taylor’s heroics threes would eventually finish on 169/7 in 40 with the next highest score being 13.
In reply Matfen started strong with an opening stand of 79 setting them on the way to the win. The hill would make inroads into the Matfen batting line up with the pick of threes bowlers Ed Moody 3/49 and Seb Fletcher-Woods 3/34 but Matfen skipper Toby Pilkington (39 not out) would see the opposition over the line.
3rd XI NTCL Scorecard v Matfen (h)
NEPL Sunday Division 1 - 3rd XI v Gateshead Fell (a) - Won by 2 runs - Matty Hynd's Captains Report
The NEPL 3rd XI held their nerve and won a very tight match against a stubborn 10 man Gateshead Fell on Sunday.
We won the toss and elected to bat on a windy day at the Hill. After multiple rain stops the game was reduced to 35 overs as we lost Harsh Patel early for 4. Aaron Armstrong joined Rash and he scored a quick 27. Liam then did the same scoring a run a ball 22. Rash continued to block and hit 4s as the score climbed steadily. Rash was eventually out for 96 in the 33rd over with the score on 159. Gabriel and Daniel ran a few quick runs to get us to a competitive 166 for 4.
Abu and Gabriel opened the bowling and bowled well and both picked up wickets leaving the Fell 50/3 after 10. Sai and Aaron came on and wickets continued to fall but so did the runs. The Fell were 108 for 8 in 22 overs with the Hill just needing 1 wicket. However Forsters and Matthews stuck in and kept the board ticking over with a combination of conventional batting and unconventional batting from Matthews in particular kept the gane in the balance and the Fell entered the last over needing 6 from 6. Mellor bowled it superbly and managed to bowl Forster on his 5th ball with the fell 2 short. A superb match played in great spirit and everyone played their part. Siddique returning from injury 1-34, Mellor 3-15, Armstrong 1-26, Sai Patel 3-31 and Ibrahim 1-20 picking up the wickets.
