Beavers buoyed by spirit with bat and ball
BRAMHALL 1st XI featured in two fixtures last week, a T20 group game on Thursday evening and a Saturday league game.
Thursday’s T20 at home to Stockport saw a similar level of application in the field to their last match against Cheadle Hulme, with similar results. After losing the toss, Stockport were restricted to 106-8 from their 20 overs. Wickets were shared between young Lancashire hopeful Chris Sanders (3-29), Luke Littllewood (2-11) and Rupes Kitzinger (2-18). In addition, there were some notable catches, run-outs and saves from the fielders – 18 year old Danny Woodside in particular.
With the bat, the Beavers looked assured in their chase, despite losing their first wicket with the score on 7. Iftikhar Naseer and Aamir Afzal put on 49 before the former was caught on the boundary for 39 attempting a fourth six in four balls. Afzal went on to make a lively, unbeaten 45 as he and captain Nick Cantello saw the hosts home by 8 wickets in the 14th over. Bramhall travel to Cheadle next Thursday in their final group game.
On Saturday, Bramhall travelled to a sunny Hyde as they faced a team with a similarly slow start to the 2017 season.
Hyde won the toss and elected to bat on a green-tinged wicket, but with the customary short boundaries at their compact Werneth Low ground.
Chris Sanders bowled a probing spell with the new ball for Bramhall, and took the first 3 wickets to fall, with 69 runs on the board. The second of these was aided by a stunning catch from Adam Wilde at 3rd slip.
Hyde’s young batsmen, including opener Tom Partridge, grew in confidence during the innings and the score began to tick along nicely towards 150. Another Bramhall burst, however, saw three more wickets fall quickly and the innings was in the balance at 161-6. The Beavers found themselves unable to bundle out the Hyde lower order though, and the home side rallied to 255 all out from the last ball of the 55th over. Ashley West’s 3-21 was the Beavers’ attack’s best return.
After tea, and despite an appreciable increase in intensity during their fielding, the Bramhall top order slipped to an all-too-familiar fate.
Some reasonable bowling was met with some poor decision making and the Beavers soon found themselves 83-6, with Wilde having 35 of these.
There then followed a period of consolidation with young pairing Sanders and wicketkeeper Sam Johnson gutsing it out against a talkative Hyde side. Sanders’s eventual dismissal after a 53 ball stay saw the score slip to 128-7, but the determination of the Beavers not to collapse and hand victory to their rivals was evident.
Despite Johnson eventually falling for an admirable 37 from 101 balls, number 10 Simon Wilkinson was able to see out 48 balls himself whilst picking up a few boundaries to finish on 38* and help Bramhall to scrape a draw at 203-9.
The 15-8 draw points deficit was not ideal, but the Beavers can take solace from the spirit shown at times with bat and ball and will hope to channel it against Neston at home this Saturday from 12.30pm.