Recovery seals a fifth straight win for Stacky

JONATHAN BUTTERWORTH STACKSTEADS 1st eleven took the long trip to Settle for their fifth league game of the season on a glorious day in the picturesque market town.

Skipper Butterworth again lost the toss and Settle decided to bowl against a Stacksteads team with a strong batting line up.

The team opened up with Hindle and Allen who were watchful for the first few over’s taking the score to 15.

However Settle then struck with the early scalp of Allen and Hindle soon followed both getting themselves out.

This brought Mahmood to the crease but his stay was short lived being run out when Holt called a quick single.

This brought Abidin to the crease who was then out caught for a golden duck reducing Stacksteads to a precarious 33 for 4.

Holt and Hussey then tried to steady the listing ship of the Stacksteads batting line up.

They progressed well until another quick burst of wickets from the canny Tarbox saw Stacksteads nearly calling “mayday” as they were reduced to 52 for 6 with Hussey for 3 and Butterworth for a golden duck.

This brought to the crease Paul Scaife who, along with Andy Holt, started to bat sensibly and get the scoreboard ticking over.

The partners took the score on to 99 when Holt was bowled out for 39 to a ball that he should have gone forward to.

However Scaife and Holt had delivered a few psychological blows to the Settle team, they were quiet in the field knowing that they should have dismissed Stacksteads for less than 80.

As Joe Saunders walked to the crease Paul Scaife took on the senior role playing some beautiful shots ●● Paul Scaife through point and the covers and they added a vital 19 runs taking the score to 118 for 8 wickets with Paul Scaife scoring a fine 43 runs.

Stacksteads’ tail then had a little wag with Matt Hussey bludgeoning a venomous 4 down the ground to eventually give Stacksteads a total of 132 runs off 38.3 over’s.

There had been a small shift in the psychology of the game and Stacksteads sniffed a chance if they were to take early wickets.

And that is what the increasingly consistent Andy Jones did removing both the openers with the score only on 11 to smart catches in the slip and covers (although point had to move round to catch it).

This brought to the crease Airey and Strickland who started to build a partnership. Airey was very much the aggressor punishing anything not on the money.

With the speed that he was scoring Stacksteads knew that only 10 wickets would win them the match.

The bowling attack and fielders protected the boundaries from Airey happy to give him the one to attempt to topple Strickland.

Jones then bowled Strickland with the Settle score now 48 for 3.

The dangerman Airey was still prowling his crease punishing anything short or loose.

Matt Hussey took a breather for Joe Saunders to have a go at the Settle middle order.

And that is exactly what he did, in Joe’s first over he took the wickets of Hulse and Lones reducing Settle to 63 for 5.

This brought the veteran Tarbox to the crease who had already picked up five wickets, was he to be the match winner? Tarbox and Airey took the score steadily on to 92 despite plenty of playing missing.

Then came the game changing moment, Joe Saunders delivered a sumptuous ball that found the leading edge of Airey, the ball looped up agonisingly slow towards Ellis Hussey who was fielding at point.

Ellis took flight and on bended knee took a one handed catch to dismiss Airey for 51.

In the following over Jones delivered another peach that moved away drawing a drive from Tarbox that was again caught by Hussey this time in slips.

These two overs saw the chance of victory swing fervently towards Stacksteads.

Saunders and Jones continued to deliver both picking up wickets reducing Settle to 103 for 9.

Joe Saunders had bowled his permitted 7 over’s with figures of 4 for 17 and Jones figures of 5 for 49 off 13 over’s.

With just the Settle skipper and number 11 left Ansor Mahmood came to the fray picking up the 10th wicket with the final ball of his first over, Settle were all out for a Nelson (111).

This finished off a fantastic comeback for Stacksteads to record their fifth straight win in the league and continue their unbeaten start to the season thanks mainly to invaluable innings of Holt and Scaife and the skilled bowling of Jones and Saunders.

Stacksteads are away at Burnley Belvedere on Saturday at 1.30pm