Hammered

The 1sts went down to a horrible defeat away at Leyland who got their revenge after the earlier fixture. On a pitch which was definitely for the seamers, Leyland batted and from the first over were gifted runs. After the best part of 3 weeks without cricket, rusty appeared to be an understatement. Simmo took himself off after two loose overs. To his credit Moff continued where he'd left off before the deluge, offering control and beating the edge, but he was let down in the field as chances went begging. Matty Liver's medium pace and swing proved difficult to handle as he and Moff looked to reign in control. Henry Thompson was trapped in front of all three by Liam, and Pro Brett Pelser was snared by Liver after frustrating the South African. And when McDonnell was castled it looked like we may have found a route back into the game.

The wheels did, however, come off as misfields became the farcical norm. Timycen's injured shoulder preventing him from bowling more than 5 overs. That meant Alex Metcalfe had a rare trundle which did little to stem the run rate. Ben brought himself back and did bowl better but constant misfields and general sloppiness meant young Daniel Lamb swept and powered his way to a fine 50, while Karl Cross was rather gifted a half century too. Moff earned a well deserved five for 58 as Leyland looked for late order runs while Matty Liver too picked up a smart 3 for 39.

We knew it was an above par total on a seaming pitch. Meccers and Jamie Heywood opened up and moved to 10 for no loss without incident, before the former fell in ludicrous fashion. So far was he out of his crease he was sent on his way by the second shy at the stumps. The wounded Timmy fell after a difficult 3 ball ordeal with Pelser which signalled the premature beginning of the end. Only Jamie's 20 offered any sort of resistance or pluck against controlled seam bowling on a helpful pitch as Lancaster fell like a pack of cards with no other batsmen reaching double figures and only 2 reaching 5. Mini, Sam Moorby and Joe Atkinson all fell bowled before the impressive Pelser finally removed Jamie with a slower ball. Danny Welbourne promoted from the 2s fell to a sharp run out before Pelser took care of James Davies. Daniel Lamb issued the final coup de grace, removing Ben and Moff, to put the whole sorry affair to bed.

One definitely for the bin... The only way is up!