Cricket: Thornham bounce back with a win at Westleigh

Thornham Cricket Club

Thornham Cricket Club travelled to a wet Westleigh on Saturday and won to bounce back from a first defeat of the season the previous week.

Arrival to Westleigh was greeted with a sign of covers and rain and a two-and-a-half-hour delay meant a 30 over game was only possible.

Thornham Captain Phil Deakin won the toss and elected to bat first on a good batting wicket.

Openers Andrew Micklethwaite and Phil Sutcliffe made steady progress in the opening spell of the innings as boundaries regularly came, until a mistimed cover drive saw the end of Sutcliffe for 21.

Aussie Tom Sargent joined Micklethwaite at the crease and helped push the score along before he was adjudged caught behind down the legside with the score on 53.

Westleigh introduced spinner Lloyd and Micklethwaite tried to up the run rate which lead to him being stumped leaving Thornham 63-3 in the 15th over.

Micklethwaite’s big hitting meant that Westleigh had to send for new balls as he punted the leather over the pavilion.

With overs running out and a Micklethwaite half century approaching, boundaries were the only thing on the batsmen minds and that saw the end of Micklethwaite as he was caught on the edge for 47.

Kindlen soon followed as he snicked to Kay.

The tail managed to get the score to 148.

Westleigh needed a bright start if they were going to chase down the target set and they did with 15 coming from the opening two overs.

Clough got Thornham on the board as Kindlen took a simple catch at first slip.

Entwistle snicked to keeper Pattison, Clough being the bowler.

Fletcher produced a couple of  deliveries that sent both Porter and Ralph back in as many balls.

At 26-4 Westleigh needed something special and Sykes and Woodcock duly got the runs flowing.

Deakin changed the bowling bringing both himself and Heywood on. Both slowed down Westleigh's pursuit of the Thornham score, collecting wickets in the process.

The game seemed all but over, however, with two wickets to get it was far from it as Ralph smashed his way to a quickfire 31 and with 11 needed nerves all around the ground kicked in.

The coolest man in the ground at this time was bowler Heywood; as the ball left his hand a big swing of the bat, a miss, a clatter of timberas the wickets fell.

A win and five points for Thornham, and cue huge celebrations as Heywood did a lap of Leigh.

Sunday saw a trip to recently relegated Swinton Moorside. Winning the toss Thornham batted first and posted 139 - 31 coming from Scott Howarth.

This didn't seem to be enough at the time but Thornham's bowling attack had other ideas. Swinton chasing were restricted to 97-8. However, it wasn’t to be for Thornham with the winning runs coming off Fletcher in the 49th over.  Chris Heywood taking 5-31.

Next week sees another busy weekend for the club with the visit of Edenfield on Saturday before we travel to Radcliffe in the Cup on Sunday. Both games start at 1.00pm.