Stronger batting performance earns a draw

EARL Shilton Town Cricket Club 1st XI travelled to Sileby for their latest league fixture against the home club’s 2nd XI.

The weather forecast was unpromising but despite drizzle during the warm-up the game started on time with Shilton batting after captain Josh Payne lost the toss for the fifth game in a row.

The return of Kyle Chamberlain to open the batting gave a more aggressive start to the innings with Kyle scoring five boundaries from the first 12 balls he faced.

While Pav Singh was more circumspect, the two of them laid a strong foundation of 64 runs in 12 overs before both fell to Sileby’s Phil Chamberlain in the same over - Kyle Chamberlain going for 44, Singh for 17.

After Sharjeel Butt was out for 22 with the score on 102, Payne joined Hass Ali in a century partnership that took Shilton to 207 in the 40th over.

Again both departed in quick succession - Ali for 67 and Payne for 50, and Shilton were unable to make the most of the final five overs, finishing up on 229-8.

This was however a muchimproved batting performance with all of the top five contributing.

Having escaped the rain during the first innings the tea interval finished with a heavy downpour.

Both teams and the umpires were keen to complete the game and after a 70-minute delay Sileby started their reply.

Due to the break their was innings reduced to 27 overs.

Shilton made an ideal start, with Kyle Chamberlain taking Chris Bulmer’s wicket in the first over.

Sileby’s Joe Charity and Richard Preston took the score to 53, before Husnain Shah took the wicket of Preston (20) in the second over of what would turn out to be a profitable spell for the medium pacer.

In his next over Shah took two wickets in two balls (Jack Ford, 10, and Charity, 33) to reduce Sileby to 72-4, before taking his fourth wicket (Mohseen Khan, 18) and Sileby’s fifth with the score on 109-5.

It looked as if Sileby were head- ing for a comfortable winning draw, but with the score on 119-5, Josh Stock took two wickets in an over (Sileby skipper Micky Ruddle, 25, and Robert Scullion, 3) and then Tom Verow repeated the act in the next over (Ryan Dawson and Chris Yates both for zero), leaving Sileby on 119-9 and with three overs to survive.

Despite a confident appeal for a catch behind, and with fielders all round the bat, Sileby clung on - giving Shilton the winning draw which was probably the fair result.