It really was a weekend to forget for the Hill senior teams, with the 1st's losing at home to Seaham Park, the NEPL 2nd's and 3rd's hammered by South North, the only positive was an agonising tie for the NTCL 3rd's against Newton, read on for the whole story.
NEPL Division 1 - 1st XI v Seaham Park (h) - Lost by 4 wickets - Match Report by Phil Haves
After 2 consecutive wins on the road the return to NBMS Denton Bank in the first of the win/lose/draw series of games disappointed as we slipped to a 4 wicket defeat at the hands of Seaham Park.
On winning yet another toss Belly took the opportunity to have a bat. After the Skipper was dismissed early adjudged LBW, Rory continued his excellent recent form punishing anything loose before he was dismissed for 60 off 77 balls (11x4s) with the score on 97. Pete (32) and Adam (48) added 50 as the score reached 147. Tharindu made 36 off 24 balls which helped us reach 223 before the declaration arrived.
After an eventful first over of the visitors reply from Max with 2 wickets, a 4 and a 6 the game swung in Park’s favour as partnerships of 79 and 101 put them in the driving seat for a winning chase. 2 wickets in an over from the Pro with the score on a 190 offered a glimmer of hope and when the 6th wicket fell with 21 still needed hopes of a victory were raised further. This was however to be our last success as an unbeaten 95 from Suraj Singh saw the visitors over the line to claim a 4 wicket victory.
Small margins highlighted a disappointing performance in all aspects of our game which hopefully can be improved upon when we visit Whitburn on Saturday.
1st XI NEPL Scorecard v Seaham Park (h)
NEPL Division 2 - 2nd XI v South North (a) - Lost by 10 wickets
Skipper Pete couldn't face the prospect of reliving the game and writing a match report this week, so here goes a summary from the Website editor.
We batted first and some useful contributions from youngsters Abu (31), Warren (30) and Ayush (29) up front saw us get off to a reasonable start, but wickets fell regularly and only due to some rear guard action from Liaml Hynd (25) and skipper Pete (23 not out), did we get ourselves to an under par 188 for 9 from 55 overs.
In reply the South North openers (Sam Ewart with 112 and David Edwards with 73) made it look all too easy, knocking off our score inside 24 overs.
We now sit 3rd bottom of the league, with a crucial game against 2nd bottom team Whitburn coming up on Saturday at the Hill.
2nd XI NEPL Scorecard v South North (h)
NTCL Divison 5 West - 3rd XI v Newton (a) - Tied - Chris Pounder's Captains Report
Saturday saw the NTCL 3’s host Newton in their 3rd of 4 straight home games in a game that needed up being tied.
Winning the toss and electing to field first the hill restricted Newton to 130 with impressive bowling displays from opened with debutant Nick Walder 2/27 (including one uprooted middle stump) from 9 and Seb Fletcher-Woods 3/4 from 6.2 in two separate spells opening and finishing the innings.
Sandwiched in between the skipper 3/19 from 9 Taylor Matthews 1/27 from 7 and Sai Patel 1/22 from 4 were the other wicket takers.
In reply the hill were going well at the half way stage at 75/4 (36 Aayan, 8 Seb and 10 Freddie) when the wheels started to coma off a bit with the calamitous run out of James Walder who was going well on 28. A couple more wickets left 3’s needing around 20 or so runs to get with the skipper and Laura at the crease. Laura would be caught for 4 and soon after Jamie Fletcher-Woods would be dismissed in similar fashion for 1 bringing debutant Nick Walder to the crease with 3’s needing around 6 runs to get.
A solid batting performance from Nick would get us to 2 runs of victory. With Nick on strike a nicely timed on drive to long on would see us get the one run needed to tie the game but rather than sit on that one run and take the next ball we went for the 2nd and unfortunately the skipper was just short of his ground with a direct hit seeing him run out for 10.
Lots of positives to take from the game which was played in great spirit.
3rd XI NTCL Scorecard v Newton (a)
NEPL Sunday Division 1 - 3rd XI v South North (a) - Lost by 8 wickets - Matty Hynd's Captains Report
The NEPL 3rds suffered a heavy defeat against a strong South Northumberland side.
Losing the toss and being asked to hat we were soon in trouble at 28 for 5. Captain Hynd steadied the ship and top scored with 17 but when he was out and the score was 53 for 6 the rest of the team soon followed. We were 63 all out in 33.3 overs. The bowling and the fielding was much better and Ayush picked up 3 wickets and Taylor 1. We could have had a few more if the ball had gone to hand but 63 was never going to be a challenge as south north passed the score 4 down in 16.3 overs. We must bat better next week against champions elect Chester le street as they continued their impressive season with their 6th win in a row.
3rd XI NEPL scorecard v South North (a)
