Solid all round performance seals victory over Barnard Castle.

Bishop Middleham sealed their third victory in four matches with an impressive all round performance at Barnard Castle Cricket Club. The twenty over match was played on a good wicket under cloudy conditions and with some team members still away on holiday they drafted in Harry French from Fir Tree and M. Conlin from the Royal Mail.

The Barnard Castle team was put into bat first and success for Bishop Middleham was immediate when in the first over the opening batsman looped a wicked ball from Stephen Ball onto the onside for wicketkeeper David Hutton to gallop round and take. (Hutton took a full length diving catch, with some claims from fellow fielders about tripping over his own shoelaces or accusations of trying to get a better write up on ‘the net'). Following the first over Ball was taken off and his second over saved for the penultimate over of the game, which turned out to be a wicket maiden (inspired captaincy for once). Needless to say his final bowling figures of 2-1-2-2 were not mentioned once by the bowler but on every available opportunity during the rest of the game. Ball also lost his ‘can’t catch’ tag during the Barnard Castle innings as his second wicket was a caught and bowled. Funny how he takes catches off his own bowling but not from anybody else’s!

The bowling continued with Michael Boorman taking the other opener with a ball that defeated the batsman in the flight and knocked off the bails and a second wicket which had the batsman driving down the ground only to find the waiting Mike Smith gratefully taking the catch. Michael finished with 2-0-10-2, a quite sterling effort. The other wicket takers were Harry Davison who took 2 wickets for 5 runs. His first wicket being caught by Hugh Boorman (the first that he has held, out of four chances to Davison’s bowling in previous games) and the second a caught and bowled (taken extremely well, a ball that went high in the air and ‘needed watching’ - well I do write this stuff). Davison also took a catch to Mike Smith’s bowling. Mike Smith was the other wicket taker , bowling his two overs at the end of the Barnard Castle innings when they were looking to add runs. Hugh Boorman, Nigel Cooksey, Derek Shaw (recently recovered from a broken wrist) and Harry French although not taking wickets were very tight in their bowling, limiting the batsmen to only a few scoring opportunities. The only slight disappointment was in the bowling of David Shaw who bowled two overs for 21 runs. Compare this with his hat trick in the same fixture of last season and you can see why it was a bit disappointing. Praise has to be given to C.Moore of the Barnard Castle side who held their innings together with a not out of 30. Barnard Castle reached 87 off their 20 overs thus setting Bishop Middleham a total of 88 to win.

Bishop Middleham started their innings brightly with openers Hugh Boorman and Mike Smith both making double figures before being caught and bowled respectively.

Next in was David Shaw and expectations were high following recent innings of 30 and 25. He made a sound start quickly reaching 9 before being caught. Wicketkeeper David Hutton then entered the fray but was promptly removed for 1. A mini collapse was halted by Harry French and Nigel Cooksey who quickly settled into the game with Harry French hitting a couple of sixes (including one lost ball) and Nigel Cooksey hitting fours to the nearside boundary. French was eventually caught and bowled for 14 and Cooksey was then partnered by Conlin (unfortunately caught for 0) and then joined by Stephen Ball. These two players eased any worries of defeat by almost steering the side to the required runs, however a silly run was taken and Cooksey was run out. With 5 left for victory Harry Davison came to the crease and hit a single, followed by running 3 with Stephen Ball. In the seventeenth over Davison hit the winning runs with a 4 from a ball drifting down the leg side.

The Bishop Middleham team played well both in the field and at the crease and leaves them in a played 4 , won 3 , lost one situation. Everyone is now looking forward to the next game away at Lanchester against Belmont.

Scoreboard

Barnard Castle

C.Thornton	c D.Hutton	b S.Ball	0
P.Ingram		b M.Boorman	8
R.Armstrong	c M.Smith	b M.Boorman	7
S.Fry	c H.Boorman	b H.Davison	8
A.Hughes		c&b H.Davison	4
S.Wilson	c H.Davison	b M.Smith	3
I.Hetherington	run out		12
M.Shoplin		not out	3
C.Moore		not out	30
D Shaw (jnr)		c&b S.Ball	0
		extras	12
		Total	87
		Overs	20

Bowling Figures

 S.Ball 2-1-2-2, De. Shaw 2-1-1-0, H.Boorman 2-0-12-0, N.Cooksey 2-1-2-0, M.Boorman 2-0-10-2, M. Conlin 2-0-4-0, Da.Shaw 2-0-21-0, H.French 2-0-12-0, H. Davison 2-0-5-2, M.Smith 2-0-10-1

 Bishop Middleham

M.Smith		b Thornton	11
H.Boorman	caught	b Ingram	13
Da. Shaw		b Kent	9
D.Hutton	caught	b Armstrong	1
N.Cooksey	run out		19
H. French		c&b Tucker	14
M. Conlin	caught	b Tucker	0
S. Ball	not out		7
H.Davison	not out		5
		extras	12
		total	91
		overs	16.2

Did not bat M. Boorman & De.Shaw.

Bowling figures

S.Wilson 2-0-14-0, C.Thornton 2-1-5-0, P.Ingram 2-0-8-1, R.Armstrong 2-0-15-1,Kent 2-0-9-1, Shoplin 1-0-13-0, Tucker 2-0-5-2, C.Moore 2-0-12-0, A.Hughes 1-0-5-0, D.Shaw(jnr) 1-0-4-0

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