Pipped at the post

A solid batting performance wasn't enough in a game that toed and froed at Vernon road. It was definitely a game for the neutral cricket fan, with runs flowing and wickets falling aplenty. On account of the form guide, St Annes captain Andy Kellett inserted the visitors on a flat featehrbed of a Vernon Road track. Jamie and Meccers set about building a platform; Meccers providing the anchor, Jim playing the strokemaker. Jim surprisingly ran himself out in the twenties after looking well set. Timmy entered and continued his run glut with glee setting about the slow St Annes bowlers. Meccers continued at his own thrilling pace, while Timmy set about blunting St Annes pro, Dinuk as the visitors moved past the hundred mark with 9 wickets in hand. Timmy swept a huge 6 and accelerated past his 8th half century of the season on the turning pitch. Meccers's gritty 90 ball vigil finally ended at 40, edging a feather-spitting Peter Cummings behind.

When Timmy fell soon after in the same fashion for an entertaining 67, the middle order had a job to do. They did not fail, as Mini Moff and Simmo made useful twenties, mini running surprsingly hard and Ben planting juicy half volleys to the leg side boundary. As wickets fell in the quest for runs, Cameo specialist James 'JD' Davies rounded off the innings planting Dinuk over the sightscreen off the last ball to take the visitors to 200, Dinuk finshing with 4-98.

The start of the second innings did not go to plan however, as the experienced Andy Kellett and the dangerous Atiq Uz-Zaman raced to 40 for none off only 7 overs. Moff wasn't best suited to the pitch and was sson replaced by Timmy to tighten things up. Ben evenutally found his range and got the crucial wicket of Uz-Zaman lbw for 29 with his slow drifty scud missile ball (thats a bloody nightmare to face in the nets never mind on a saturday) as the pendulum swung back in favour of the visitors. The required run rate rose for the home side, but some slack fielding and the occassional bad ball meant that the pressure was released on too many occassions really, if we were being honest, we were all guilty of letting the game drift.

With St Annes keeping wickets in the shed, Nathan Bolus slowly accumulated while Kellett continued to 40. The St Annes captain finally fell to another Simmo arm-ball. Bolus grew in confidence and reached his maiden first division 50 but added no more as he fell to a resurgent Moffat who picked up 2 crucial wickets on his return. Simmo claimed another two and two run outs put the visitors firmly back in the driving seat. At 8 down with 30 required off 4 overs there 15 points for the taking. However some tired fielding, hard running and impressive late order hitting from young Matthew Taaffe and Paul Wilks saw St Annes get the required total down to 7 from the last over.

Simmo, who had bowled a tireless 25 over spell taking 4 wickets, bowled the final over. The skipper thought he had Taaffe trapped in front of all three with 2 required from 3 balls, however the decision was turned down and it was left to the youngster to clip the ball through off his legs to give the home side victory with one ball remaining - agonising. A bitter pill to swallow!

http://npcl.play-cricket.com/scoreboard/scorecard.asp?id=11395816

NB: May have knackered up a few details in the guardian reports this week - apologies.