Heaton fall to Hawk’s big-hitters
ON yet another beautiful late summer day Hawk Green hosted Heaton Mersey.
On winning the toss the Greens skipper, Josh Hampson, elected to bat opening the innings with himself and Justin Blackhurst facing the opening attack of Luke Marshall and Neil Morrisey.
It was obvious from the start that both batsmen were going to make the most of a rock hard batting track.
They matched each other shot for shot with only Morrisey bowling well enough to be spared the onslaught, Hampson was first to fall bowled by Ian hughes for a well crafted 65, 128-1.
Next to the crease was Peter Richards and to the delight of the crowd he teed off from the third ball he received, a maximum, over long on and he continued to flay all the bowlers to all parts of the ground.
Next to fall was Blackhurst for 69, 189-2, a quite exceptional innings caught Doug Mountjoy off the bowling of Damian Stringer and Mersey could be forgiven if they thought this was any sort of breakthrough.
Jack Needham joined Richards and the mayhem really started as in the next five overs the pair added 63 runs with a series of maximums off all bowlers with Needham taking a particular liking to the bowling of Stringer.
Richards eventually fell for a quite brutal 77 including 5 x 4s and 7 maximums in 40 balls, 252-3, Needham fell shortly after for an equally brutal 43 in just 16 balls including 1 x 4 and 5 maximiums, 269-4, and the innings closed on 290-7 with Ben Littler closing on 17.
The Heaton Mersey response led by Jordan Barnet and Zeb Zaleem, facing Jack Needham and Lee Hallas, started brightly as the pair realised what a good batting track it was in an opening stand of 59 at better than a run a ball.
It was at this stage that skipper Hampson turned to his two slow bowlers Elliot Young and Mark Richards and they did not let him down as Young with the first ball of his spell trapped Barnet lbw for 35 and in his next over despatched Mohsin Malik in the same manner for 4, 67-2, and then Zeb Zaleem was bowled Young for an excellent 55, 96-3.
Richards then came to the party as he firstly had Shabaz Shafiq caught by brother Pete for 7, 104-4, and then bowled Freddie Payne for a duck, 108-5, Luke Marshall joined Damian Stringer at the crease and showed his intentions from the start that attack was the best form of defence and with Stringer at his dogged best the pair added 66 runs when Stringer was eventually run out to a direct strike from Needham for 14, 174-6.
Marshall eventually fell for an excellent 55 caught Josh Hampson bowled Peter Richards, 182-7 and the innings eventually closed on 193-7 with Humzah Wasim not out 12, Elliott Young and Mark Richards were the pick of the bowlers with 3-44 and 2-37 respectively from their allotted overs.
The Green are at Cheadle Hulme for their final match next Saturday wickets pitched 12 noon.