Seconds on back foot after devastating first over

AFTER week of rain, a poor forecast for the weekend and the previous day’s cancellation of the Cup match it was a pleasant surprise to find a fairly dry and sometimes sunny start to Sunday.

We would have some cricket to watch after all.

All started well when Rammy captain Jonathan Dack won the toss and elected to bat on what looked a decent if a little green wicket against our local rivals Haslingden.

Any home supporter’s happiness at the game starting on time was however rudely interrupted by one of the most surprising opening overs seen in living memory at Acre Bottom.

Oliver Cameron opened the bowling for Haslingden from the Mill End and with his first delivery bowled Alex Olpin round his legs.

This brought debutant Jason Pyke to the crease and he turned his first delivery around the corner to square leg.

A quick single was called and Samuel Price was run out without facing a ball.

Two balls and we were 0 for 2.

Captain Dack came in at number 4 and tentatively blocked a couple of deliveries before being clean bowled by Oli Cameron’s 5th ball.

Robert Read managed to see off the final ball but we were left on 0 for 3 off one over. A pretty tough place to stage a recovery from.

Quite a debut for Jason Pyke and not what he would have envisaged before the match.

Hassy were understandably cock a hoop and had all the momentum.

Read and Pyke tried to set a base and edged the score to 18 before Read was caught behind for 4 from 32 balls. Owen Collinge joined Pyke but our struggles continued. Collinge was LBW for 3 leaving us 28 for 5.

A stand of 18 took us to 46 before Jack Thomond was bowled for 8.

Edward Lee stuck around with Pyke to take the score to 62 before he was bowled for 1. 62 for 7 and any hope of setting anything reasonable for Hassy to chase were dashed when Pyke’s stubborn innings ended on 27 shortly afterwards.

We were finally all out for 74 in the 39th over.

Oli Cameron finished with 3 for 21 from 10 overs and Thomas Richards picked up 3 for 8 from his 7 overs.

It would need a miracle at tea to turn the match around or the biblical hailstorm the 1st team experienced at Middleton.

Ultimately neither came to our aid and as the dark clouds gathered Hassy knocked off the winning runs in the 13th over for the loss of 5 wickets. An impressive performance and a well-deserved victory.

If we can take anything from the match it was the consolation we took 5 wickets with Ryan Storey picking up 2 for 22 from his 5 overs.

Hopefully this is a one off and we can turn things around next week when we have a double header. An away trip to Darwen in the League on Saturday followed by the third attempt to play our Cup match against Walsden on Sunday.