Guest Reporter – Gary Ingham vs Clitheroe

On waking up on Saturday morning the main concern in my house for my son and I, wasn’t will Paddy Martin get another 7 wickets today or will John Palmer ever turn up to see Lowerhouse play again, but which newspaper had the best World Cup wallchart. We ended up plumping for the Daily Mail one, which amusingly had Leroy Sane on the front. Proving once and for all that the sports editor of the Daily Mail wasn’t on the German world cup squad selection panel.

We were going to get the bus over to Clitheroe but a fantastic last minute change of heart by Reg aka Mark Porter to drive,  meant that myself, Spenny and my son Mackenzie arrived at Clitheroe in relative comfort. Now this was my first visit to Chatburn Road and what struck me on arrival was the severe lack of benches for folk to sit on… So it was a case of first come first served so we plonked ourselves down at the Bowland Brewery double decker end. We already knew that Joey Hawke wasn’t playing due to be being on holiday and it wasn’t a great surprise to see Lewis Marsden replace him in an otherwise unchanged team.

Lowerhouse won the toss (I think) and decided to bat and some impressive early bowling by the Clitheroe openers Sam Halstead and Marcus Sharp led to the pair combining to get Finchy out for 6. This was after skipper Ben Heap was dropped twice. Ben wasn’t to have any more luck and he went 11 runs later for 19 skittled by Sam Halstead. That wicket brought Frankie and Ocki together and between them they contributed to an impressive 3rd wicket stand of 77. Frankie particularly impressive with some lovely cover drives. Frankie was finally out bowled by the Clitheroe pro Fawad Alam for 46. This was despite some of the Lowerhouse faithful being confused by the hapless Clitheroe scoreboard who had him reaching his 50 the ball before and even had Ocki on 94 with our score 112! (work that one out).

Charlie Cottam came in at 5 but didn’t last long and was bowled for 2 with the score on 121 bringing Blez to the wicket and he witnessed Ocki getting to his 50 in the 46th over. It was at this point that Lowerhouse were probably looking at a score of around 160 but Ocki decided enough was enough and proceeded to smash the ball all over the shop and despite Blez being run out and Paddy Martin losing his wicket shortly after we managed to get to 188-6 with Ocki finishing on a magnificent, unbeaten 88 from 92 balls having smashed 10 fours and 3 sixes.

Clitheroe began their reply confidently with openers Charlie Dewhurst and Harry Lang looking comfortable against Finchy and Toxy, with Toxy even chipping in with an unfortunate overthrow that went for a boundary.

Myself and Spenny decided to go for a walk around the ground and before we got back to our seats Frankie had got both openers with the score on 51. Francois bowling some really impressive tight stuff from the town end giving the Clitheroe batsmen nothing to go at. The next wicket fell to Ocki who got Jack Dewhurst LBW. His replacement Peter Dibb didn’t last long skittled by Ocki with the score on 89. Now this brought Thomas Lord to partner the Clitheroe Pro Fawad Alam. I was a bit concerned at this point as Clitheroe began to score a bit more freely with Lord especially hitting 2 huge sixes. If these 2 stay in youd have to say Clitheroe would be favourites to win, but its not every week you have to face Paddy Martin and he snapped up Lords wicket with a fantastic caught and bowled. A catch Nick Pope would’ve been proud of. His replacement Farooq Butt was soon skittled by Finchy and then Dan Turner was gone the ball after leaving Finchy on an hat trick which unfortunately didn’t materialise.

The run rate at this point was going up every over and the tables were definetly turning in Lowerhouses way, but the pro was still in. Get him out I thought, and its game over. Enter Paddy Martin once again with the big wicket of Alam bowled for 36. Thankfully for the Glaziers of Clitheroe, they weren’t called for on this occasion. It was left to both Paddy and Finchy again to snap up the last 2 wickets, giving them 3 apiece. This left the Lowerhouse faithful very happy indeed with Clitheroe all out for 149 and another massive 12 points for “The House”.

We are now in 4th and breathing down the necks of Rammy in 3rd. Its going to be a very interesting next couple of months and with performances like this and last weeks win over Norden it must give the lads so much confidence going into the next batch of league games. Who knows what may happen.

#believe Up The House

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