Willoughby CC Vs Irthlingborough Town CC

We welcomed Irthlingborough to the green for the first league game of the season. After loosing the toss skipper Ben Hollis was asked the bat first on a sunny afternoon. Things started very positively with Hassan Nawaz and Scott Cluley opening up and scoring well and punishing the ball balls to the boundary.

Scott fell chasing a wide one and was caught comfortably 40-1 ,Ashley Rayner was next in and was immediately triggered by their umpire out LBW which was very questionable 3rd ball without troubling the score. Ambrose looked confident but sadly was dismissed for 6, Ben came and went for 0 to a ball which didn't get up. Martyn Norman, Nikesh Mistry, Dave Alcock and Callum Hanks all added to the score and we finished on a below par score of 128 all out.

Callum Hanks and Alex Hislop opened the bowling for Willoughby. Callum was consistent as ever bowling some good in swinging hoops causing lots of problems and rash shots from Irthlingborough opening batsmen, its best described as close your eyes and swing hard. Hislop pulled up due to a injury after just 2 overs which was very unfortunate. Scott Cluley replaced him and straight away made the break through with a lovely yorker cleaning Bradley for 6 34-1. Callum kept going at the other end and was rewarded with one wicket finishing on 1-44 off 7 overs. Cluley bowled 9 overs straight picking up 3 more wickets and finished on 4-47 off 9. Hollis bowled 4 overs at the end 0-23 off 4.3 overs, Irthlingborough Town finished on 129-5.

We put up a good fight defending a low total, maybe one more wicket would of made it interesting coming to the end of the game but it wasn't to be. A very tough week selecting players to play and trying to have the strongest team out available, with 25 people unavailable to play it was always going to be hard getting the big W on the score sheet. We go again next weekend away to Mears Ashby.