Zed's Diary
Follow our new 3rd Team skipper on his journey onwards and upwards. From humble beginnings with the A Team, Zed has now assumed charge of the 3rds. With the 2nd team captaincy next in his sights Zed continues his journey to the top.

Rawtenstall v Accrington 3rd 11

Rawtenstall 268-6 Accrington 250-8

The game at Rawtenstall saw me lose the toss for the fifth time in a row. I can't believe my bad luck as Accrington Cricket Club has many good 'tossers' in its midst but not me it seems. Rawtenstall decided to bat first on a wicket that had 200 runs written all over it. Despite this scary premonition, we made early inroads as we seem to do almost habitually and Rawtenstall were reduced to 40-3 inside 13 overs. They recovered the situation somewhat as they ended up on 88-3 at the halfway mark. This is as far as our success and control of the game went. What followed was pure unadulterated slaughter as Rawtenstalls captain and no 5 batsmen savaged their way to over 200 in a partnership of 155, and in the process they were aided by the usual dropped catches and lackluster ground fielding.

As a last desperate measure I decided to bring the liquorish all sorts of Sam Heaps bowling to the fore. He repaid my faith in him as he made the vital breakthrough reducing Rawtenstall to their 'knees' (230 -4 off 42 overs). His celebration for his first wicket in Lancashire League cricket was one of pure exhilaration and unbounded joy, anybody would have thought he just took a hat-trick or even worse, become a father! . Even the umpire commentated that he was 'disgusted' at the way Sam kindly pointed out the right directions for the batsmen on his way back to the pavilion. By the way this is after he scored 79. Rawtenstall's innings rested at 268-9. A mammoth total. At this point I no longer wish to complain about our incompetent fielding and catching as it has become an unfortunate but predictable trait in our game and our bowling figures were about as impressive as Sam's hygiene!

Our reply was surprisingly good to the the hugh challenge that lay ahead of us. Sam Heap and Waqas managed to put on 98 for the opening partnership off 22 overs. We needed a further 170 off 24 overs. After hitting his way to a fine and deserved 50, Sam was out and soon followed Waqas but not before the latter scored 53. Congratulations to Waqas for his maiden 50, spending all that time in the nets with me has truly helped him develop into a fine consistent opener. Only joking the only time I've gone near a net is usually when I go fishing (albeit when I bat!).

But well done Waqas and Sam Heap and I hope and am confident that this is the first of many 50's to come for these kids. They truly are street fighters as they have managed to fine tune and nurture their cricket in the ram shackle ghettos of Rhyddings High School. Both Waqas and Sam have stayed away from the temptations on the run down streets of no go areas in Accrington (the Conservatives have won the Spring Hill Ward in Accrington off Labour in the local elections....so to the Lancashire police constabulary please note this area) and instead have put their time and effort into sport.

The platform was there but we lost some momentum in the middle order and by the time I arrived at the crease 110 were needed off 11 overs .....unfortunately for myself I only managed to score 11 of them but in came Dave who scored a fantastic 32 off 15 balls before he was out. Thanks to him we had a chance when we needed 35 off the last 4 overs but unfortunately wickets were lost regularly and our innings rested 18 runs short of Rawtenstalls 268. Accrington down but not quite out at 250-8 off their allotted 46 overs.