Farmer digs deep to steer third team to win
CRICKET BY SIMON GRIFFITHS
MACCLESFIELD’S 3s were at home to Parkside on Saturday, skipper Miles Horner losing the toss to his Maritime CC counterpart and had his team sent into bat.
Opening pair of Yash Jain and Robin Farmer got off to a steady start with both looking in good form.
The first of Farmer’s boundaries was a drive down the ground which he could be heard congratulating himself for from the clubhouse. Jain was unlucky to fall for 33 but Farmer dug in and build a superb innings around support from his teammates including Tom Jennings who got a brilliant 36 which included 3 sixes, one of which went all the way over the Parkside boundary landing on Victoria Road’s wicket and proved to be the only thing on the day that carried further than Robin Farmer’s voice.
The Maritime bowling attack just didn’t have a solution for Farmer’s batting and managed to take out just 5 Macclesfield wickets on the day. There were double figures too for Robin’s over 40s teammate Stephen Whittingham but the batting day belonged to Mr R Farmer. 6 fours and 6 sixes and a lot of running in between saw Robin surge past 100 and ending on 116 and a not out on top of that.
Macclesfield ending on 209 for 5.
Having done their work with the bat, Macclesfield took to the field ready to attack the Maritime batting from the off. They got off to a great start when the opening bowling line up of the two Ollies; Pottinger and Mitchell bowled two maidens a piece meaning it was 5 overs in before Maritime managed a run, effectively making the game a 36 over run chase and putting the visitors right up against it from the off. Ollie Pottinger was on particularly good form picking up the first three batsmen’s wickets Shiraj, Ajay and Naseem going for only 8 runs between them. But Ollie Mitchell also bowled very well and was unlucky not to pick up a wicket.
Credit to the visitors though as they steadied in the middle order, Sameer Khanna worthy of particular note for his 76 and Usman Bahadar also bating well toward the final overs for his 56.
Maritime 187 all out in just over 37 overs.
A good game of cricket and a great win with a fine team effort all round.