Rishton 3rds 79 Accrington 3rds 116-7

Accrington Cricket Club managed to win its first cricket match of the season against a decent Rishton side, even though it was the third team.   Having won the toss I decided to bat on a sunny afternoon and the way the pitch was playing (very slow, uneven and generally very unpredictable) a score of between 120 and 150 would have been a good enough. We lost 10 overs of our innings due to unexpected rain and managed to get 116-7 off 36 overs. This was largely thanks to the Accrington debutante Shak Ali who scored a cool and calculated 41 and some late hitting from Rick Williams (19*).

We came out to the field looking for early wickets and with 'aggressive' intent and within no time Rishton were 4 wickets down for 2 runs and then 30-8. This was largely due to the pace and bounce of D Stubbs (3-20) the swing of Waqas (2-10) and accuracy of Shak Ali (3-3). With the game more or less won, I decided to give the youngsters a try and in doing so the pressure was off Rishton and my decision almost backfired as they managed to rally and take the score to 73-9. The rain came again and had we not gone on again Rishton unbelievably would have won the game on run rate. I brought back Shak and Waqas into the attack and we managed to bowl Rishton out for 79.

The star performance undoubtedly was Shaks all round effort with bat and ball, D Stubbs, Waqas and Rick Williams almost played key parts. The one area of concern was the fact that we dropped 4 catches and looked a little lacklustre in the field. Nevertheless well done lads, a wins a win.