Dinting dismissed with relative ease
BEFORE their trip to Woodley, Hawk Green CC entertained potential title adversaries Dinting, at Rhode Field.
Having won the toss and electing to bat Hawk Green got off to a quick-fire start with Josh Hampson 49 and skipper Josh Unsworth39 putting 91 on for the opening partnership. However two wickets in quick succession brought the in form Pete Richards to the wicket with rookie Ben Littler.
The pair put on a match winning partnership of 143, with run machine Richards hitting 114, and Littler a classy 60. Once again two wickets fell in quick succession, but late brutal hitting from Jack Needham 24, Logan Jeffs 18 and the rejuvenated Lee Hallas 31 not out saw Hawk Green post an extremely competitive total of 361-7. Ryan Stringer was the pick of the Dinting bowlers with 3-81 off 12 overs.
The Dinting response was somewhat muted, following fast and accurate bowling from opening pair Jack Needham and Lee Hallas, and it was the latter who picked up the opening two wickets, reducing Dinting to 38-2 off 12 overs. Logan Jeffs with an equally miserly 2-17 off 7 overs reduced the visitors 64-4, and when skipper Unsworth introduced Mark Richards into the attack, the writing was on the wall. Richards blew away the Dinting middle order with an impressive 4-26, and only late resistance from youngster Sam Elliot, with a creditable 46 not out, saw Dinting reach an unlikely 153 all out.
On Sunday Hawk Green entertained local rivals Compstall, in their annual efforts to progress to the National stages of the village cup competition. The home side batted first, and after losing opener Josh Hampson early on, runs were hard to come by as Pete Richards, Jack Needham and Ben Littler all failed to match the heroics of the day before, and the Green were struggling at 111-4. But inspirational skipper Josh Unsworth 129 and Logan Jeffs 38 compiled a patient 114 partnership that took the total to 215-5. Compstall bowlers continued to dominate and the home side limped to a below par score of 247 all out.
Compstall’s reply got off to the worst possible start with opener Heginbotham getting a beauty from Jack Needham that jagged back and took the top of off stump, and Unsworth followed suit removing Gosnell cheaply, to reduce the visitors to 47-2, but a fine rear guard action from Giannassi 36 and opener Sam Messih, 79 saw the visitors recover to 144-5. Wickets continued to fall, and when Pete Richards caught Messih on the boundary at 178-7 the spectators were expecting a quick fire conclusion to the game.
But J Abbott 25, and J Ince 34 had other ideas, and reduced the deficit to just 12 runs as the game entered the final over. In spite of a valiant effort from the lower order Compstall fell an agonising 6 runs short ending the day on 241-7.
The 2nd X1 were victorious on Saturday in Division 4 of the DCCL, in a low scoring game at New Mills. George Ridings putting a Man of the match performance in with 35 not out and three wickets, that saw Hawk post 137 all , then dismiss their opponents for a meagre 105 to register a welcome win.