[themaclad]

https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4584702

New Longton



https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4635518

Penworthnam 4ths





A rarity a double header on what probably the hostest weekend of the season, both games away against sides that play on other teams grounds both in the Southport area so two round trips of about 60 miles in successive days .
The New Longton was played at Tarleton and the Penwortham game at Bretherton, both smallish grounds.
We actually got to ue the changing room at Tarleton a first this season. Odd looking wicket been used before a bat first first wicket, as it looked like it would get worse as the game progressed. We won the toss and batted half the job done or it would have been if we had actually batted well, we didn't only Mark Luxton with 15 looked to have any hint of permamnance however your truly ran him out, also ran Jamie Hughes out however Jaamie can best be described as a rabbit and I was just trying o get the strike back that's my excuse.
So 75 never really looked a good score although the usual Wyre inability to catch a ball. Both long on and off spilled one in the first three overs.
We got a couple of early wickets but Pepi and Tynan put on nearly 30 to get them to 48-3 which menat common sense batting would take them home. More catches spilled including 2 in the first two balls from me, I had an smile on my first as I trudged back to the boundary at the end of the early, A 46 finish from my bowling meant the end of the game.
Went in a pub the Cock and Bottle Tarleton, get a table go to the bar order your beer and they bring it too you, still prefer the old ways.

Sunday rinse and repeat although Hallett's innings of slogging should have led us to a better totale but the rest of the team's inability to bat again reared it's ugly head although Penwortham had a leg spinner Orikhail who was without doubt the best bowler we have played against this season. I got a bueaty pitched turned and bowled however some got out to dire shots.
With the sun burning down catches were spilled again and short boundaries on either side meant pitching short meant lost balls.
Carried on in the same vein with the bowling first two bals went 46 first over went for 20 as Padmananabha 43* kept putting me into orbit.
They won with ease as we cement our position at the bottom of the league.
And the pub across the road wasn't open Shameful

Will do yesterday's epic later in the week did the wheel's fall off the Wyre wagon? Too right they did

[themaclad]

https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4584752

Can actually class this as one that got away we had them at 121-8 with a shed load of overs left, if we had got Rob Walmsley out even earlier probably might have been in a even better position to win, however the aforementioned Walmsley was LBW to yours truly for a really good 56 BAE were actually only 64-3, got Hashmi next ball on a hat trick and 64-4 diid not get the hat trick although nearly got another the ball later.We started to whittle through them and 121-8 in clover then the wheels started to come off big time. Kavi and Vara started to put together a useful partnership with Vara feasting on some generous dross by sending three sixes over the Preston Blackpool railyway line, not as impressive as you think the wicket was pitched about 30 yards from the track, they added 81 for the 9th wicket and to say this flattened us is an understatement.
Stuart Walters bowled well for us with scant rewarded whilst yours truly rocked up with 3-32
Chasing 209 was always a tough task
Mark Luxton soon went and a few lusty blows from Ambrose Hallett gave the score a respectable look, but no one could stay with Stuart Walters who on top of his bowling scored 54 only Neil Hankey got double figueres as we fell to a 90 run defeat
Walmsley and Hashimi both took 3 wickets

https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4584722

Today was not a good day, playing at a school about a mile from were I live on a knackered artificial wicket, we lost the toss and stumbled our way to 93 all out a score that was about 200 short of being a respectable total, only Dave Wright with 44 and me with 16 seemed to sugeest any permanence. Wright was last out and I was out brilliantly caught by the stumper off an inside edge going down leg side. It was however mainly a procession, give them credit they bowled and fielded well on an outfield with was marked with a 100 metre runnig track, by the way it looks a massive distance, also had football markings and rabbit holes.
We didn't actually bowl to badly dropped a couple of chances however the two openers took them home to an easy win, Brown with 73 not out.
A friendly tomorrow then a week off followed by a trip to the league leaders and apparently I'm captain, what could possibly go wrong

[themaclad]

A souvenir from Saturday

[Lord Snooty]

Nice!

[themaclad]

Today had to chase 353 we didn’t

[themaclad]

https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4584692

Well a weekend in Kabul might have been a better option than this massacre, as skipper for the day hospital pass from the committee could be the phrase however when the first team skipper goes on holiday and two of his sons both first teamers also go, the second team skipper is also away and a lack of availability meant a slightly weakened first team meant a even weaker second team. The team selected didn't look two bad but the two first teamers we had were suddenly whisked elsewhere meant may be a long afternoon.
However Saturday dawned off to the league leaders and the fact there was rain forecast meant we had a greater chance of surviving grew. Winning the toss was key and I duly did that
The wicket was a road and by the 18th over they had rocked up 150-0 we had dropped 1 chance a catch behind of Steve Clayton who seeing he hadn't bowled this season put in a pretty decent spell.
The gplden arm of the captain bowled Hain and in the over we got the other opener Veera for 75 and 69 respectively, back in the game well almost from then on in it was carnage as Goodin and Fiddler sent the ball to all parts of the Globe although we did have Goodin stumped but as bowler didn't appeal we didn't get the decision he was about 20 at the time personally thought it was an interesting interpretation of the rules given I was 20 yards away and didn't know.
Our fielding wasn't the best our wonderful ability to misjudge the bounce the ball on the boundry cost us about 40 runs. As the innings wore on the fielding understandibly got worse, catches went down not easy when there is snow on the ball, ended up bowling to three men straight behind the bowler, a couple of late wickets and they declared having broken the Division 6 record.
Good point though none of them got a century
So we had 51 overs to get 353
An opening stand of about 70 was a good start however it did take about 30 overs, Steve Clayton scored 51 his first fifty for teh second team, Rob Abbott a bright and brezie 20 and Andy Bamford a qquick 18.
Steadfast at one end was Tony Horsfall who was playing his first match of the season to ensure this was the 55th consecutive season he had played a game. Tony likes to occupy the crease played in a game were he got 5 from 109 balls
He got 17 as the procession to and from the wicket began, with 7 balls to go we are 9 down and have the chance to deny them 3 extra points. Instructions to Jimmy tell Tom to block the last over out, first ball Tom, takes a run, next ball Jimmy is out guess there was something of a message confusion somewhere along the line.
Next week we have even less available

[themaclad]

https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4584673



In the old days the scorebook was king however now the scoring app is king hence the scorecard of the game played today. Had a slightly stronger side out this week although only just, wasn't helped by having two batsmen late arriving which given I'd lost the toss and having been put in meant a change in the batting order.
So I opened setting a captain's example of leading from the front well for two balls at least, the opening bowler for Blackpool was a girl of about 14. First ball lifted a bit got bat on it, second was slightly further pitched up and a hapless swing across the line and it was 0-1
we rallied a little and the second wicket went down 2-2
A decent partnership between Beveridge and Dennis with Beveridge hitting some lusty blows 39-3, enter Matt Westhead usually Matt has gone in low down the order but given the latish arrivals he went in at 5 and did a very good job shared in a good partnership with Steve Dennis who had opened took the score to 67 before Dennis was out for 29.
Scoring wasn't easyand wickets started to tumble Westhead got 15, Clayton 20 however the tail didn't wag and we were all out for 95




Opening for Blackpool was Kieran Newcombe who two seasons ago scored a century against us on a day when there was a 70 mph gale blowing and two our lads fielded with coats on under their cricket sweaters it was the coldest I've ever been playing the summer game

Newcombe and Galligan put on 45 for the first wicket, they batted well had a bit of luck especially after an excellent spell by Beveridge who bowled at pace and got some lift, Dennis at the other end bowled better after a loose first over although teh app has it down as Steve Clayton
The aforementioned Clayton did break the partnership by bowling Galligan, Sainsbury looked like he would depart at any time and both he and Newcombe went in quick succession to Clayton after a few overs of pace turned to leg spin.
Fighting back I took two wickets but they got home by 5 wickets. Great performance in the field by us made them fight especially seeing it was raining for most of the time when we were bowling

[themaclad]

Captain again today only had 10 men now down to 9 you need 4 bowlers we only have two suspect we are Donald Ducked today

[themaclad]

Staggering on to the end of the season the good news is we now have less than 100 overs to bowl this season, firstly a double header against Wrea Green, a less than impressed captain gets a message to say the 10 we had was now down to nine, worse still only two front line bowlers which meant having to fiddle the other 18 overs from the other six outfielders.
Explain the fact to the opposition captain he wins toss and bats.
So myself a Dave Lever spend the next 90 minutes twirling away with varying success, when I had done my 12 overs 2-55 the Green were 96-5 so we had done pretty well however think they had slightly changed the batting order around hence 13 year old Evan Malone was in early on. From then on in skipper Mayers and Ewan's dad Iain took the game away from us putting on 124 for the 6th wicket, Andy Bamford bowled decently, Chris Gregson hadn't bowled for 212 months managed 6 overs until his body gave up and Matt Westhead bowled his first overs for the club, the joys of the second team stand i skipper. Malone senior ended up with 96, fair play to our visitors they lent us fielders so we actually had 11 on the field
So chasing 248 chances of winning zero 5-2 with a tail starting at six soon 19-4 with the captain run out for the third time again for 0 not my fault, Mr Bamford obviously forget I'm not Usain Bolt.
A bit of lusty hitting from Andy Bamf and Dave Lever got us to a better total before Andy Bamf running for hamstring casualty Andrew Bodsen managed to run him out as well
We paly them again this week on the ground with the duck pond looking forward to it

https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4584760

[themaclad]

https://palaceshield.play-cricket.com/we...ts/4584751

Almost snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on to have the jaws of defeat snatch it back. The ground with the duckpond on it almost saw an epic finish as we failed by 10 runs to achieve the rare feat this season of winning a game.
As with last week Wrea Green won the toss swapped the batting order around, to be fair we did the same with ur bowling order as I was put on for the third over of teh game, two wickets in my first two over we had them three down for not so many, enter Jamie Todd smote my third over for 14 and that was my spell over for teh afternoon. He doesn't defend he swings from the hip and the ball is propelled at a series speed hence the massive bruise on my foot having had teh misfortune to get in the way of a drive heading back to me at warp factor 10
Decent partnership with Iain Malone who had got 90 plus against us last week and after about 10 overs they were scoring at 7 an over.
Good slip catch by Lever to get rid of Malone before Ackers with hisleggers got Todd for a violent 50. We worked our way through the rest of the batting with possibly a couple of favourable decisions. But Malone junior and Langley took the score to 109. On 98-9 Malone scooped the ball in the air between three close fielders not one of them reacted, little did we realise that that was a pivotal moment especially as we were 14-6.
The McCleod brothers lasted five balls made none between them only Beveridge with seven suggested permanence although Mr Horsfall lasted nearly 50 balls for little as he likes to do. First baller for me, inswinger didn't really pick it up did not bounce hit stumps, balls that do not bounce are liable to get me out this season, third time.
Skipper Duffield and Lever rallied the skipper doing the bulk of the scoring, slowly we began creeping towards their score mainly from the bat of Duffers although Lever did contribute 10. Hughes came in retired hurt and Ackers didn't last long, in went Hughes again with a runner and we edged closer. Hughes departed and it was left to the skipper and Neil the wicket keeper.
Duffers scored the majority of the expectations grew on the sidelines until it was cruelly dashed when Wlletts was bowled. The skipper ended up with 59 not out to go with his three wickets otehr mentions to Ackers who got five wickets which more than made upform his hammering at Ingol.
Wrea Green's last match they spent 50 quid on booze and we toasted the end of their season, we have one more to go Blackpool 4ths next Saturday