Middleham Woes Continue As Inept Batting Performance Gives Godivas An Easy Victory

Bishop Middleham yet again failed to produce enough runs to put pressure on the opposition at Haughton C.C. and the Godivas came out as easy victors in this 20 over per side match.

The report on this match is one taken from the boundary as your intrepid reporter was sidelined for this game due to injury. As a result of this, the report may seem different from one which is composed after being in the heat of battle.

Unfortunately at the time of going to press no scorecards had been given to me (H.Boorman kept forgetting) and so there are no batting or bowling figures available for this game.

Middleham were put into bat by the opposition and this saw the early departure of the usually reliable H.Boorman for 0 trying to steer away a turning ball. The mainstays of the innings were R.Woods and D.Minns who both reached good figures. Woods retiring, but not before injury had brought in the need for a runner. Minns, ever reliable, stayed at the crease, but had obviously been having lessons off one G.Boycott as the scoring was slow (however the averages continue to look good Dave). At one point this reporter felt he was watching a four day game!!!.

The batting continued in the same vein with notable points being D.Hutton out first ball, completely missing a full toss, and S.Ball having to see off the threat of a bowlers hat trick. Also P.Wetheridge made a couple of useful shots but only scored singles when the ideal would have been for boundaries. The final score for the Middleham innings was 88 off twenty overs. A score that was really 10 to 15 runs short of the necessary to give Middleham a competitive chance of taking the game.

When to Godivas came into bat the run rate was kept down initially by some fine bowling from S.Ball and M.Smith. Wickets were taken and some good fielding performances were put in, especially by G.Hutchnson, ever alert to try and stop the quick single. However too many boundaries were scored by the Godivas and also during the middle section off the innings the Middleham team started to field too deep and ones were turning into twos. Two instances of note from the boundary were D.Huttons ‘quick crawl’ across the outfield to retrieve the ball and D.Shaw dropping a catch off his own bowling.

In the end the Godivas easily reached their target and Middleham have only themselves to blame for not pushing the score along during their innings.

Stop Press – The Trimdon Ground has Re-opened and a fixture against the Winkers on the 8 July is now taking place.