Defeated Quorn facing a fight against relegation

AFTER A fine win last week against Barrow Town, Quorn came to the game at highflying Asian Sports full of confidence.

Seeing a flat hard and dry wicket, Quorn captain Andy Kenneth chose to bat when he won the toss.

The Asian sports opening seam attack bowled very tightly, giving little for the Quorn opening batsmen to hit. Richard Sharp (21) and Andy Kenneth played carefully, steadily taking the score to 46 in the 13th over, before Sharp popped one up into the leg side.

It soon became apparent that the dry wicket was in fact starting to break up, without sufficient water to bind it together.

A number of the balls broke through the surface, popping at the batsmen or shooting through at ankle height.

However, it was the Asian sports spinners S Quessou (2-16) and V Raja (4-25), who really turned the game. Raja turned a huge off break between Tom Errington‘s bat and pad and then snared Bill Reynolds first ball as Quorn fell to 52-4.

Matt Blackwell (5) helped Kenneth take the score on to 72, before chipping one to mid-wicket. Richard and then Chris Cooper found runs hard to come by as the Quorn total crawled to 94-8 after 37 overs.

Having scored 51 runs from 117 deliveries, Andy Kenneth was still finding timing the ball difficult and eventually scooped one out to cover to leave Quorn nine down before they had reached the 100 mark. Adam Lee (9) and Andy Stovel (10) got Quorn up to 115, before V Quessou (2-12) wrapped up the innings , to leave Quorn at least 30 or 40 runs short of a par score.

After the innings break, the Asian sports batsmen approached their task with vigour.

Mindful of the fact that the wicket was only going to get worse and that rain had been forecast, the batsmen did not hold back in playing their shots.

Steve Maddocks (1-30) picked up the early wicket of P Posmurtem (5), but P Tandel and N Bari continued to push the score on quickly.

Asian Sports had reached 36 before Andy Stovel (1-36) accounted for Tandel (22). Andy Kenneth (1-28) and Adam Lee( 1-10) both picked up wickets, but the Asian sports chase was not to be thwarted as the winning total was reached in just 20 overs. Bari’s 21 ball 34 featured six fours and one six, but it was left to the captain, Dhamesh Patel (20 not out) to take his team over the winning line.

Still mired in the relegation battle, Quorn batsmen need to start producing some innings of substance.

Next week, Quorn face the league leaders Maher Stars, when they will need to bring their A game to the party.