Burton Leonard B v Spofforth

George Greaves Cup Final, 20th July 2009, Knaresborough CC
Burton Leonard B v Spofforth

Burton Leonard B found themselves in the final as defending champions, though underdogs this year in the face of thoroughbreds Spofforth CC. A bright and breezy evening greeted the teams, and Knaresborough had done an excellent job in preparing the ground. Despite the good track, on winning the toss, Burton skipper Bryan Slack had no hesitation in putting Spofforth into bat, the aim being to bowl and field tightly and to restrict Spofforth to a realistic target.

Opening bowler Dan Thirkell produced prodigious swing in the first over, ensuring that ‘keeper Leigh Parsons was well warmed up, and with the fifth ball bowled opener Squires neck and crop – a great start. Characteristically miserly bowling at the other end from Slack ramped up the pressure, with Spofforth’s batsmen struggling to get the ball away on a low-bouncing, flat batting surface. Thirkell disturbed the timbers again in his third over, getting through Glenister’s defences and finishing with impressive figures of 2-7 from his 4 overs. Slack also gave nothing away, giving Burton a good start, ably supported by good fielding to restrict batsmen to 1s and 2s. Young left arm quickie Sam Crompton, on first change, produced an excellent maiden over that surprised the batsmen with its pace and accuracy, and in his second over came one of the turning points in the match. Batsman Lawrence plopped forward to a leg side ball, missed it and overbalanced very slightly, lifting his back foot just enough for stumper Parsons to remove the bails with a lightning stumping: 38-3.

Dan Thirkell was already covering vast distances sweeping the outfield, so when Simon Old fancied a second to Thirk’s arm, he thought that his pace could beat Dan’s throw. Old had not banked on a direct hit on the only visible stump from deep square leg and was narrowly run out, sparking huge celebrations in the Burton Leonard fielders and in their gathering crowd of supporters. A “champagne moment” candidate for sure.

Wickets fell at regular intervals after that, Spofforth’s batsmen failing to generate enough momentum between wickets. Veterans Stuart Barker and Wilf Wigglesworth took three wickets between them, Barker removing Spofforth’s stubborn opener Roberts who top scored with 18. It was left to Trevor Kettlewell to take 2 wickets to finish off the tail to reduce Spofforth to 84 all out, a very gettable target and way below what anyone would have predicted before the game.

Openers Mike Stansfield and Leigh Parsons set off well, pushing singles off the Spofforth quicks before Stanner got the boundary count under way in the second over. First change Giddings deceived Leigh with his first ball, hurrying one through to trap him lbw back in his crease. This brought Thirkell to the crease, who immediately started pushing the ball around for singles and twos, though Stanner was run out going for an ambitious second, having scored a positive 13. Phil Chatterton and Dan Thirkell pushed the score on to 42 before Chatterton chopped one to gully for 7, significantly the only batsman out caught in the whole match. This brought Kris Burtwistle to the wicket, eager to make amends after last year’s final, where he registered a duck. Boundaries were few and far between, though the scoreboard kept moving slowly, until the 16th over, bowled by Taylor, when Kris hit two leg side fours, the first courtesy of a misfield at midwicket. This was followed by a “five wides” adding 16 in one over to take the score to 75, by far the most profitable over of the game.

Old made a mess of Kris’s stumps in the next over, and Sam Crompton fell in the same manner just two balls later, before Stuart Barker helped Thirks get the score to 81 before being the third victim of Old’s accurate quick bowling. With nerves jangling, it was left to young David Slack, veteran of last year’s winning run chase, to answer Thirk’s cry for a quick leg bye and survive the shy at the stumps which missed narrowly. This brought Thirks onto strike who cuffed Old for two to bring the scores level. Off the last ball of the 19th over, Thirks opened his boundary account through midwicket to reach 34* and win the cup by 4 wickets. Thirks collected a much deserved Man of the Match for his all-round performance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday July 21st, 2009 at 11:00 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.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)
Mail (required - will not be published)
Website


Security Code