Cricket: Colne v Middleton

Middleton Cricket Club

Middleton Cricket Club 1st XI travelled to The Horsfield ground on Sunday 16 June to play league leaders Colne who were unbeaten in their first eight games. This was a must win for Middleton in order to keep them in the two promotion places at the top of the league table.

Colne Skipper Matthew Walker won the toss and put Middleton into bat.

Professional Chris Williams and Leighton Le Carpentier opened the batting and got Middleton off to a good start on a difficult wicket putting on a stand of 48 in 17 overs before Williams was caught by Umar Farooq for 21 off Andy Hakin and four balls later Hakin bowled Le Carpentier for 17 without addition to the score.

Grant Jones joined James Tierney at the wicket but with score on 50 Hakin took his 3rd wicket when he bowled Jones for 0.

Tierney and Richard Dempster put on a stand of 36 before Hakin picked up his fourth wicket bowling Tierney for 21. Rhys Tierney was next to go for a 15 ball duck when he was caught by Kenton Rhodes off the bowling of John Lambert with the score on 100. Martin Roberts joined Dempster and together they put on 24 before Roberts was caught and bowled by Rhodes for 15.

124 for 6 soon became 135 for 9 as Tom Rutter was bowled by Rhodes for 2, Danny Royle was lbw to Farooq for 1 and Addison Holland was caught by Walker to give Hakin his 5th wicket.

Middleton skipper Dale Highton and Dempster made an invaluable stand of 26 to take the score to 161-9 at the end of the overs with Highton ending on 10 not out and Dempster making his maiden half century for Middleton with a superb knock of 53 not out off 89 balls with 5 fours to help Middleton to a very competitive total. The rain came down just as the players were leaving the field but Middleton knew they had a great chance of winning the game if the rain cleared.

The rain had cleared by the end of tea and no overs were lost. Middleton opened with their usual bowlers Williams and Dempster and it was Williams who struck early when in his second over he had Rhodes caught by James Tierney for 7 with the score on 11. Two runs later the same combination struck again to get rid of David Spokes for 1.

Next came the prized wicket of Colne's South African professional James Price, who had already scored nearly 400 runs this season when Williams bowled him an absolute snorter which followed the South African and clipped his gloves. Price was walking before Le Carpentier took an excellent diving catch for 0 and Colne were staring down the barrel at 16-3. Eight runs later Williams took his fourth wicket when Chris Walton was caught by Danny Royle for four.

Colne were finding it hard to get runs and Tom Rutter picked up two wickets when he bowled opener Adam Procter for 16 with the score on 39 and 11 runs later he had Tom Bradshaw caught by Roberts for 14.

Two overs later with the score on 53-6 the rain came back and the game was abandoned denying Middleton the chance of the full 12 points win but they did win the match by 55 runs on Duckworth / Lewis and reducing the the points difference at the top with Colne to 9 points to put themselves back in the mix for promotion with over half of the season to go.