Rams’ much-needed boost

RAMSBOTTOM’S Lancashire League game against Rochdale was probably our most important fixture for a long time. Having slipped into a relegation spot following the terrible run of form we desperately needed to get back on track.

Batting first we knew it was important to see off the threat of Steven Oddy. This guy has been around for a long time and is seriously clever medium paced bowler.

Unfortunately, we lost our first two wickets with only seven on the board.

The luckless Simon Hanson brilliantly caught one handed and skipper Kieren Grimshaw the victim of a rather dubious decision. This brought our professional to the wicket to join Jonny Dack, playing his first senior league game of the season.

Both batted with great determination picking up runs whenever possible and dispatching the odd bad ball they received.

Most importantly they were able to see off the threat of Oddy.

Rochdale skipper Roche brought himself into the attack to bowl in tandem with their professional Whitehead, who had been getting quite a bit of response from the wicket without success. This must have had some kind of mesmeric effect on the Rammy amateurs as firstly Jonny, then Brad Fielding, Josh Clarke and Harry Caton fell in almost identical fashion chipping the ball into air to give the Rochdale fielders catching practice.

When Jon Fielding was bowled the home skipper had earned a collection and Oddy must have felt like tearing out his hair.

While all this was going on Daryn Smit had been showing the boys what to do with poor deliveries and despite not being in complete comfort with his damaged finger he finished the innings off in tremendous style ending with 117 not out. The fact that our final score was only 186 and JD’s score was 28 highlighted a disappointing amateur batting performance.

It was important to take early wickets when the opposition batted so Kieren Grimshaw opened the attack with Clarke and Fielding who he hoped would exploit the spin in the track. Both had excellent spells and were able to reduce Rochdale to 22 for 3. This brought Zaman, a former Grade A cricketer from Faisalabad, to join the Rochdale professional Whitehead at the wicket.

Although not scoring quickly both were able to see off our opening attack before starting to accelerate. When Daryn tried his luck with the ball he was unable to get any purchase and things started to look bleak so a double change was made with Josh Dentith and

Dan Pyke being brought into the attack.

With the score on 103 Josh succeeding bringing the home professional down the track, beating him in flight and allowing Harry Caton to complete a brilliant stumping.

Wickets started to fall with regularity and Rochdale slumped to 127 for 8 with Josh taking three wickets and Pykey two. However with Zaman still there Rochdale had hope and with Oddy showing resilience with the bat they took the score to 163 before Fielding, who had been brought back into the attack, induced a false shot from Oddy and then had Poscha LBW next ball to give us that much needed 12 point victory.

The relief this brought our supporters was almost tangible. One however cannot take away the fact that our batting was almost totally reliant on Daryn’s brilliant knock, only Jonny Dack coming up with the goods. Too many of our dismissals coming by the way of poor quality strokes. Our bowling and fielding was pretty good with Fielding, Clarkey, Josh and Pyky all putting in a good shift.

Amateur Man of the Match went to Fielding for his brilliant spell of 4 for 21 off 12.4 overs, a great performance.