3rdTeam - Leeds Sikh B - 2nd June 2007
After last week grasping defeat from the jaws of victory...it was important that the team got back to winning ways after 3 winless weeks.
The toss was won by El Capitano Cooper and on a relatively sunny day he decided to stick the Esholt Willow wielders into bat...and it proved early on to be a good decision. Messrs Holmes and Morton made sure and steady progress playing the goodun's and braying the baduns...to take the score onto around 80-0. At this moment as is often the case with one wicket came two. Tricky Morton went back to pull and the ball came a tad low hitting the very top of middle then Ben Holden came to the crease and stayed around for three balls before getting a grubber that trapped him plumb LBW.
Helped through the order with some decent batting from Jai Mistry (11) and Phillip Wilkinson (20), Dipper Holmes batted superbly all the way through to the final four overs when he eventually fell for around 60...an excellent openers knock. Even after Johnny Garnett swang almightily hard at his only delivery and missed Esholt managed to score 174...a score that looked like it could be sufficient.
The performance in the field from Esholt was top notch and it was this pressure that helped force errors from the two Leeds Sikh opening batsmen and presented Paul McNamara with 2 early scalps. From here, it really was the Neil Cooper show...He bowled consistently straight and frustrated the Leeds Sikh batsmen into mistake after mistake and with some help from Jai Mistry and Phillip Wilkinson who coincidentally took two excellent catches to help the cause.
Thanks to Coops' figures of 16-5-38-6 Leeds Sikh were skittled for 106 giving Esholt a 68 run win. Unfortunately due to players missing left right and centre, the 3rds could not build on their win in the cup on Sunday against Pudsey Congs and had to forfeit, however, as the old saying goes...at least we can concentrate on the league now...