Milnrow CC beaten by Ashton and Radcliffe

Milnrow Cricket Club

Milnrow CC had a very disappointing weekend, losing both their matches against Ashton on Saturday and Radcliffe on Sunday.

There were positive individual performances but the team came up short in two good games. In each game, Milnrow were left reflecting on dropped catches as opposition players made good scores having been given several lives.

On Saturday, Milnrow put Ashton into bat and two early breakthroughs made it look like Milnrow could make real inroads into the Ashton batting order. However, Ashton's overseas amateur, Mario Boyce, who had scored 72 against Milnrow in the first game of the season, took the attack to the Milnrow and hit several boundaries.

He always looked like he would give chances and indeed he was dropped four times by Milnrow before eventually being bowled by Storey for 80.

Ashton continued to benefit from sloppy fielding from Milnrow and scored 201 for 6 from their 45 overs.

Milnrow's innings started very positively with Dryden and Crabtree putting on 65 for the first wicket, but when Crabtree was out on 47, quick wickets fell, including those of professional Price and skipper Power.

Milnrow's innings never really recovered and although Dryden scored 56, they never looked like getting close to the Ashton total.

The team worked hard to pick themselves up on Sunday's game against Radcliffe, but there were several similarities to the Saturday game.

Milnrow made early breakthroughs but then allowed Ul Haq a couple of chances and he went on to score 64.

At 117 for 3 it seemed like Radcliffe would go on to score over 200. However, Milnrow really dug in and some spirited bowling from Brown and Price meant that Milnrow bowled Radcliffe out for 175. Brown finishing with 4 for 44.

This total looked achievable but Milnrow really needed a good start. Unfortunately for Milnrow this did not happen and the top three batsman were all out before the score reached 20. Most notably, professional James Price only made eight and the pressure was on skipper Power to lead the team to victory. He batted resolutely to hold the innings together, and received some support from Diplock and an excellent innings from Lee Storey, but ultimately his innings was not enough to lead Milnrow home.

Power scored 77 before holing out on the boundary edge but it was noticeable that he gave the Milnrow supporters something to cheer and a glimmer of hope by hitting three big sixes. He produced an innings of real graft followed by expansive shots, and although ultimately it was in vain, it is batting like this which will help Milnrow bounce back next weekend, with away matches at Middleton on Saturday and then the exciting prospect of the Wood Cup game at Royton on Sunday.