Zed's Diary
Follow our new A Team skipper through the trials and tribulations, heartache and pain, during his first season in charge

CLAYTON YOUTH CLUB v ACCRINGTON A: 1st June (Harry Wood Cup 1st round)
Clayton Youth Club won toss
CLAYTON YOUTH 132 all out ACCRINGTON A 191-9

We won!!!! for the third time in a row I had lost the toss, this time round being invited to bat first. We started the innings tentatively losing our opener Ijaz for 2 and Immy temporarily injured (on the account of a beamer homing in on his arm). When Bernard came to the crease at no 3, the entertainment started kicking off. The guy drove and edged his way to an nice 21 and in the process almost running himself or his partner out on at least four separate occasions. He doesn't call...just runs!. Despite this handicap Dave Hargreaves managed to put a 50 run partnership with Berny, with himself playing very well for a fine innings of 51, taking the score to 121-4 before he was out. He is quickly establishing himself as our most reliable batsmen. Boy do we need a couple more like him!

The innings was given substance with other key contributions with Imran finally coming to bat again (14), Andy continued his rich vein of form (13 run out) and myself scoring 33. We reached 191-9 (about 40 more than our aim).

The Clayton innings started off disastrously as Tom Pendergast snapped up 3 wkts in only his second over. Immy got one at the other end.....Clayton teetering on 18-4. Never the less the opposition counter attacked from here as their captain Spenny (61) and their no 6 hit Imran and Tom out of the attack, taking the score to 90-4. Immy a pear shaped, big arsed, no nonsense, bat jarring outswing bowler, on his day is an underestimated bowler of great skill. On his off days he's just big arsed and expensive and today was one of those days.

Lucky for us Abbas came to the rescue with a fine 8 over spell (3-22) ripping out the Clayton middle order and an unlikely hero in M Arshad emerged (2-14 off 5 tidy overs) keeping things tight at the other end. The Clayton innings was brought to a close on 132.

A much improved performance all round from Accy A, with key contributions from everyone. Particularly pleasing was the contribution of Berny and Arshad, who unlike the Heineken advert are probably not the best exports in he world (South Africa and Pakistan respectively) but definitely the keenest. Long may their improvement continue. Well done lads

Don't miss the other instalments
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8