Tough day as Stow stifles Macc attack
MACCLESFIELD CC BY SIMON GRIFFITHS
MACCLESFIELD first XI travelled to Urmston and on winning the toss acting skipper John Birchall decided to bowl.
A difficult decision but for much of the early overs, led by economical bowling especially by Craig Melrose, and tight fielding the hosts were held in check.
However, the opening batters Harry Singh and Arav Shetty, both of whom play for Lancashire 2nds, played sensibly although Singh was dropped in the slips when on 2.
Birchall changed his bowlers, but it was not until the 25th over with the score on 92, that a breakthrough came, when Shetty spooned a ball to Rob Porter at mid on off the bowling of Jack
Massey. A patient 44 for the opener.
Spinners Porter and Massey were restricting Urmston to just over 3 runs an over as Massey took his second wicket, that of Gautam Narayanan, with the score 104.
However, from that point Singh and skipper Lewis Jackson started to up the tempo.
A 63 run partnership for the 3rd wicket was curtailed when Singh was stumped for 83 by Jack Mattson off Birchall’s bowling.
Despite having plenty of wickets in hand Urmston were still scoring at under 4 an over.
The wheels then came off for the Macclesfield attack as Jackson and Matt Kilcourse pummelled the bowling for 91 runs off the last 8 overs.
Under the pressure, Macc’s fielding wilted somewhat as catches went down.
At the close Jackson was 56 not out and Kilcourse undefeated on 61 off 31 balls as Urmston posted 258-3 from their allocated 50 overs.
In response Porter and Massey opened the batting and the latter looked in imperious form with a couple of early boundaries.
However Porter, the in-form batsman after two successive 50s, was caught behind for 2 with the score on 21.
Massey then got a ball that swung in late and he lost his off stump for 20 leaving Macc on 34-2.
Both wickets to Rahul Premrajh.
A change of bowling saw spinner Callum Stow brought into the attack and he proceeded to run through the Macclesfield batters as he took 6 wickets for 37 runs off 14.2 overs.
A number of batsmen got into double figures, including the returning Khalid Sawas (caught on the boundary for 11), and wicket keeper Mattson, 17, but failed to notch a meaningful score. It was left to the last 3 players Brad Porter (14 *), Craig Melrose (22) and Will Jennings (10) to put on 51 for the last two wickets and record 2 valuable batting points as the innings closed on 141.
It was always going to be a tough contest against a strong Urmston side but nevertheless a disappointing performance overall by Macclesfield.
Next week they travel into the Cheshire countryside to play Alvanley.