2nd XI - So the saying goes

Morpeth 2nds went into this fixture with a weakened team due to non-availability of a number of first team player, so were without key players LaWrence Brown and Jamie Forster.

Benwell & Walbottle, as it stood, were top of the league and the inform team to beat. The two flies in the ointment for this week were the lack of Umpires and the lack of bails. The latter problem half solved we all got to work.

C Maxted off form for this week with the toss, Morpeth were put into bat first. The two openers Jevons and Allison for Benwell kept tight lines and were not easy to get away with the first fall of wicket coming after only putting on 30 on the board.

Paul (pockets) Jackson stole the willow show with an impressive return to form (and cricket), hitting 73 before being caught on the boundary at deep square leg. Which left Morpeth at 140 for 6 after a tumble of wickets. The tail end added a reasonable 44 to the stand, Morpeth batted out the 45 overs for 184. The wicket was definitely a batting one and the fear over tea was that we might well be short of twenty or so runs.

Benwell’s Jevons with acceptable figures of 3 for 43 with 4 maidens toping their attack on the Morpeth innings.

Mrs Forster kept the boys full of energy with yet another top notch spread. 8/10.

Plenty to play for, Morpeth entered the field with a tight game plan, Paul Jackson and Ben (the power) Jones opening the Morpeth bowling. A frustrating spell for Jackson falling into the Chris Horner book of no wicket taking spells. In truth Jackson’s bowling was far to good for the Benwell batting contingent. B Jones took the initial break-though wicket of M Green for just 9 runs, caught at point.

R Embley managed 10 overs 2 for 47, the best figures of the day, a mixed bag of deliveries but the scorebook doesn’t lie, I promise you, I’m looking at it.

In the distance Stuart Hills continued his excellent run of form in the boules.

With reference to the title of this piece, I was always told as a youngster that ‘catches win matches’, this is almost as cringe worthy as hearing ‘it’s a game of two halves’ from some terrible football pundit. However, those who seek to preach this message weren’t half backed up by the antics of this fixture. Apparently avoiding all efforts to catch the ball before the leather graced the floor with its presence was in the Morpeth game plan for the day. There were dropped catches at a number of positions by a number of fielders. Today I won’t name names, this may well be because I was involved but I’ll leave that up to the readers imagination.

Tension mounted as chance after chance went begging. The total notched by Benwell with what would appear on paper to be consummate ease. W Aslam, who was dropped in the 30’s and 40’s went on to score 96 not out as Benwell hit their target with two overs and 6 wickets to spare.

Back to the drawing board gentlemen.

Man-of-the-match: Paul Jackson

Richard Embley
 

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