Advantage Lowerhouse

Saturday 16 July 2011 – ENFIELD HOME Lowerhouse clinched a tight victory over Enfield in another rain reduced game to steal a march on the rest of the Lancashire league as only the games at the West End & Bacup started.

Yesterday’s rained off fixture at East Lancs now takes precedence and will be replayed on 3/9/2011. The league rules denote that as Saturday’s games were a replayed fixture this programme of games can now only be replayed if all the final fixtures between now and 4th of September are completed.

 An immense debt of gratitude to our groundsman Peter Tighe who read the forecast correctly and hatched a plan realising a break in the weather was likely for 4-5 hours after 1-2pm.

Back breaking water hogging the entire square over and over again assisted by Chairman Stan and some of the clubs Directors allowed the teams to play.

Winning the toss and batting in the 24 over per side contest, Lowerhouse missing Captain Cottam & Jon Finch were well served by openers Ben Heap and Joe Martin put on 25 runs before Martin was out.

Wickets fell steadily which didn’t help the run rate but Heap who has started his season in tremendous form, continued to bat well hitting six fours and 2 sixes from 82 balls faced as he dominated the innings. Joe Beneduce and Matt Walker added 16 late runs together at a brisk pace to provide a challenging target for Enfield.

Francois removed Adam Bracewell without scoring and fellow opener Gowers for 3. With the score at 9 for 2 the rains returned and on the resumption with the target reduced to favour Enfield of 107 runs from 20 overs, Haasbroek immediately took the wicket of Afzal thanks to a sharp slip catch by Hasan Abbas. Fergus Bailey replaced stand-in captain Johnny Russell and immediately claimed the wicket of Hussain. Jackson and Enfield professional Werner Coetsee now carried the hopes of Enfield but when Bailey accounted for Coetsee, Lowerhouse were confident of victory.

Haasbroek was switched to the Liverpool Road end to defend the shorter straight boundary but the return of Russell heralded a mini assault by Joe Wigley that threatened to wrestle the initiative away from the home side.

Enfield now needed 17 runs from 2 overs to win and Russell made what proved to be the final match winning move by bowling Bailey for over 19 in which he accounted for Jackson whilst conceding only 3 runs. Haasbroek bowled the final over and Lowerhouse owe a debt to Hasan who leaped acrobatically to prevent a 6 which turned into just a single which meant we successfully closed out the game to finish with 3 for 29 from 10 with Bailey taking 3 for 24 from 4.

This weekend sees Lowerhouse visit nelson on Saturday and then entertain Bacup @ the West End on Sunday both games commence at 1.00pm

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