BY JOHN RICHARDS

ON a day where the forecasters were promising rain Hawk Green travelled to Mottram, their closest rivals, in pursuit of the 1st Division championship, but no rain – just a very strong breeze.

On winning the toss, the Greens skipper Josh Unsworth elected to bat and opened the innings with himself and Paul Needham against the Mottram attack of Michael Scott and Jordan Swann.

After hitting two fours Needham was first to fall, caught at 1st slip off the bowling of Jordan Swann, 14 – 1.

New batsman Peter Richards was quickly into his stride and took 18 off Swanns third over which resulted in the bowler being replaced by Oliver Andrews.

Scott then had Unsworth caught at 1st slip for 14 – 42-2.

Richards was joined at the crease by Ben Littler and the pair added 25 runs before Littler was caught behind by Charlie Baird off the bowling of Andrews for 14, 67 – 3, which very quickly became 70 – 4 as Jack Needham was caught at short cover off the bowling of Liam Wright.

Next to the crease was Jordan Henderson, at this time the Mottram team were in an ebullient mood having the League leaders 4 down with only 70 on the board and a third of the overs gone – but during the next 20 overs their heads were dropping as Richards and Henderson started to flay the bowling to all parts of the ground.

Henderson was the main protagonist during this onslaught being particularly severe on the bowling of Jay Riley, who went for 37 from his 3 overs before he was removed from the attack, run out for 8, 281-8 and in the final over Sam Clarke hit 16 runs to take the final total to a creditable 291- 8.

The Mottram reply was all about the pace and accuracy of teenager Jack Needham – the Mottram openers Andrew Metcalfe and Oliver Andrews had no answer to the opening attack with Hallas bowling a miserly length and beating the bat on several occasions.

In his 2nd over Needham beat Andrews with a beauty that bowled him neck and crop for 0, 2 – 1, Ryan Fitton was next to the crease, Needham added to his tally when Metalfe was caught by Clarke fending off a ball that spat at him from just short of a length, 9-2, and on the same score Needham dismissed Fitton, caught by Mark Richards for 6. Charlie Baird was joined by skipper Stefan Fieldng only to become Needhams 4th victim comprehensively bowled for 6, 27-4, giving him figures of 7 overs 4-17, the maximum allowed by the ECB edict – but if the Mottram batsmen were expecting some respite they were in for a surprise as the Greens new sign-