BENWELL & WALBOTTLE CRICKET CLUB
U18 Haltwhistle v Benwell & Walbottle – Tuesday 6 May 2008
In the U18s first ever match in the West Tyne U-18 league at Haltwhistle, the wicket like many in the NE at present was rain affected and the outfield very slow. Our lads who batted first struggled and shots were being played far too early, resulting in dismissals from frustration as much as anything. Adam Wilkin opened sensibly scoring 11 singles in his knock, before being bowled for 13, and Lewis Birrell contributed 19 including a straight six. However he couldn't time the next ball so well, and spooned up an easy catch. In the circumstances it was thought 70 off an allotted 18 overs might be a good score, but in the end Benwell & Walbottle finished on 55-7. Too many full tosses were missed, gifts when the wicket is most unhelpful!
Haltwhistle, started similarly to us with Lewis Birrell taking two quick wickets including a brilliant diving catch by Jordan Goodrich at mid-off. D. Swallow who had taken 1-5 off his 4 overs appeared to be batting on a different wicket for the home side, and looked as if he was going to win the game for them. He batted well waiting for any short balls to reach him, obviously having more experience of the Haltwhistle wicket
than anyone else. However, the turning point came at 30-2 scored at a good rate when he was run out for 20 with a bad piece of cricket all round, poor call, indecision, poor fielding, poor throw, with eventually Jamie Carter finally managing to throw wicket down. When Adam Wilkin was introduced into the attack he hit a good length straight away and took 2 wickets in his first over. One included a very good catch at short extra cover, by Lewis Birrell. Adam needed to leave the field after having been hit in face unfortunately missing a skied catch, but ended with 4-1-3-4 as Haltwhistle collapsed from 30-2 to 40 all out! Lewis Birrell finished with figures of 5-2-5-2.
Overall, a very pleasing win in our first match in this league. Thanks go to Dan Ramshaw and James Carr who came along as reserves, no doubt their turn will come.
U15 Tynemouth v Benwell & Walbottle – Friday 8 May 2008
The U15's had a hard start to the season away to Tynemouth. After a good start the home teams opener sbegan to dominate the bowling. Robson and Forrest had a 140 partnership before Gorham bowled Robson. Chasing 156 we got a bad start with Lough and Vedhara soon out. A great battling performance from Nathan Gorham and Ryan Wake bodes well for the future. One area the U15's need to work on is the number of extras we gave away, 43 in total, giving the opposition 5 extra overs.
