Pateley Bridge v Burton Leonard

After a week of mixed weather the Pateley Bridge groundsman had served up what appeared to be a bowlers' delight. The spongy green surface made fielding first an easy decision for skipper Blakes when he won the toss.

At 2pm BLCC took to the field despite only having nine men as Mickey "The Mouse" Wray and Mark "not so quiet" Fox were characteristicly late. Despite the lack of players for the first three overs Burton made a steady start, restricting runs and putting some early pressure on the batsmen. Muzza and blakes were bowling well and even though there were several wafty shots the two openers survived the first 14 overs.

On came Dan "179" Thirkell from the Bewerley Park End. GONE! First ball Jaffa from Thirks, yorking the Pateley opener and sending him back to the hut. Not long after that came a moment of pure class when James "John" Townsend took an incredible stumping of Fox's bowling. Unfortunately these two wickets brought Pateley's danger men to the crease - two fairly big units! Runs started to come more freely now and the skipper turned to spin to try and buy a wicket. On came Kris "shiny boots" Burtwistle (aka Man Hands) to put some flight and gyle into the Burton attack. Too much flight and not enough gyle proved expensive and he was soon replaced by Matt "The Park" Rangeley who fared no better.

Tom Simpson was now in full swing launching mighty DLF maximums to every boundary and on his way to an explosive 117. He shared a 97 run partnership with Colin Chadwick before Chadwick gave his wicket away to skipper Neil Blaken. The wickets slowly began to fall including another top notch stumping from new boy Townsend before Simpson finally fell to Muzza's bowling. Pateley's run rate dropped but they still finished with a respectable 281-6, although Burton knew this was a gettable score on this small ground.

The Mouse and his accomplice Craig "Minus" Eustace strode out to the crease. Eustace started in his usual fashion and both openers started to score quick runs, cruising past their half centuries with ease.
After an opening stand of 119 Eustace was bowled out by the pick of the Pateley bowlers.

This brought Matt "steady away" Rangeley to the middle and the pair began to forge a partnership of 95 before Rangeley was run out for 20 going for a quick two. Man in form Thirks strode to the crease looking like an advert for GQ magazine. Coming from a big score the previous week the "man in tights" (quite literally) would have been disappointed with his score of 9 but everyone was more than pleased with Mickey Wray who stormed to his century. Paired with the class and experience of Mike "174" Crawshaw, Burton finished Pately off in style and an important five points "in the bag" for the first team.

Burton are now starting to gather momentum this season and will be looking for another win at home to Rainton on Saturday in a scrap for third place in league.

Many thanks to Brian Murray for the photos below.

This entry was posted on Saturday May 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 PM and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.

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