Firsts end campaign with loss

RELEGATED Runcorn Cricket Club’s first XI closed out a season to forget by going down to defeat at Mobberley last Saturday afternoon.

Although the league table never lies, it has to be said that there were more than one or two games which could have gone either way if only players had held a catch here or scored a few more runs there.

But to their immense credit, the team kept going even though it was certain they were going down a couple of matches ago.

As far as the game itself went Runcorn batted first, with opening batsmen Patrick Tyrrell and Mike Jenner starting well.

Jenner was looking well set when he went for a quick single and was run out by Mark Goodstadt for 20 with the score on 53.

Dan Booth was in at number three and was disappointed to be heading back to the pavilion pretty sharpish when he was caught by the impressive Goodstadt off a Hank Schlaghecke delivery for just a single.

Runcorn needed to steady the ship if they were to avoid the all-too familiar collapse that they have so often suffered this season.

For a time it looked like new batsman Matthew Keenan and Tyrrell would do just that.

However, the latter was soon on his way when he was caught and bowled by Schlaghecke for a decent score of 35.

Skipper Will Magee was next in and was looking set until he was trapped lbw for 17 by Josh Northover.

Sadly, the collapse began as Keenan for 13 and then Jack Beech for five departed in quick succession.

The only other batsman to really trouble the scorers was Phil Conway who was not out on 22 by the time Runcorn were skittled out for 149 inside 47 overs.

Mobberley batted steadily in reply and despite losing wickets regularly, reached the total relatively easily, finishing on a matchwinning 151-7 off just 34.1 overs.

Matt Mountney led their batting with 49 while opener Matt Rose chipped in with a useful 32.