Match Report versus Nelson (Home) 2015
Following Saturdays fixture being abandoned, after a long time sat around in Haslingden’s changing rooms, the forecast for Sunday provided a little more hope that there would be some cricket played following showers in the morning. Waking up on Sunday morning to a heavy downpour would have put a lot of doubt in people’s minds that the day was going to be any different than the one before. Thanks mainly to the efforts of Stan Heaton and Dave Waddington, amongst a few others, who got to work on the ground as soon as the rain ceased the ground was declared fit and a start time of 3.15 was decided on by the umpires leaving a 30 overs a side game. With a short boundary and Nelson being a good 20/20 side in previous years it was set up to be an exciting encounter.
Lowerhouse named the same side as the previous day with youngsters Joe Halstead and Dom Stuart again appearing for the champions. Whitehead returned to playing duties after missing last week’s home game against Accrington through injury and Captain Charlie Cottam lead the side following his absence the previous weekend. The Nelson side was as expected with Chris Heap taking over from the departed Tyler McGladdery at the top of the Nelson order. Toqir Hussain returned after a good season in 2014 which saw the young all-rounder narrowly miss out on the amateur double of 50 wickets and 500 runs and the new professional Keshav Maharaj was an unknown entity in his first outing against Lowerhouse. Khurrum Nazir returned to Seedhill following his move to Colne a couple of years back and looked to add a different dimension to the Nelson middle order.
Walker and Pienaar opened the bowling once again for Lowerhouse and the Nelson batsmen looked in good form picking the gaps in the field early to keep the scoreboard ticking. Walker disappeared for six which bounced back of the park wall before having Nelson opener Russell Bradley (20) caught well at mid-on by Chris Bleazard with the score on 29. Hussain came to the crease and was in no mood to hang around playing some very expansive shots early on. Hussain had reached just two in adding 6 for the second wicket before he succumbed to a leading edge which found the safe hands of Stuart at mid-off to give Cobus his first wicket of the day. Maharaj looked untroubled by the damp wicket and found the boundary on regular occasions. The Nelson paid man and opener Heap put on 21 for the third wicket before a mix up saw Heap run out, by a combination of Joe Halstead and Joe Martin, for a handy score of 15 on a difficult track. At 56-3 Nelson captain Neil Thompson joined his professional to try and build on a good start. This didn’t happen as the Lowerhouse bowlers continued to bowl good areas and build pressure forcing the Nelson batsmen into mistakes as Thompson was undone by the introduction of Fergus Bailey from the car park end and chipped the ball into the hands of Whitehead without troubling the scorers. Nazir managed to hang with his professional, as Maharaj hit a few more boundaries, but with time running out he attempted one shot too many and was well caught by his opposite number for Walker to pick up his second wicket of the day. Bailey kept up the good work and removed Phelan without scoring (Joe Martin using all his body to ensure he took the catch) and then Sam Halstead fell for just 1 after being the second batsmen to find the ever safe gloves of Martin behind the stumps as Walker picked up wicket number 7 for the home side. Veteran Michael Bradley provided good support to Nazir, who finished unbeaten on 30, before being run out following an extravagant (and completely un-necessary) dive at the stumps from Walker which was described as Jonty Rhodesesque after reaching 4. Lewis Hillman joined Nazir for the remainder of the innings and didn’t get the chance to face a ball as he finished not out on zero. Nelson ended the innings on 104-8 with Pienaar bowling exceptionally to only concede 22 runs from his 9 overs. Fergus finished with figures of 6-0-2-23 and Walker took 3-58 bowling through the innings.
The Lowerhouse reply got off to the worst possible start as Joe Martin (1) cut the first ball of the second over straight to point to give Nelson their first wicket with the score on 5. Charlie returned to the number three spot in the batting order and for all we knew they could have been batting at the MCG as both Whitehead and Charlie made easy work of the Nelson bowling, Whitehead in particular exploiting the short boundary towards the road. Charlie finally fell after reaching 25 when he was well caught at slip from the bowling of Thompson to leave Lowerhouse in control at 67-2. The departure of his captain didn’t phase Jonny as the onslaught continued. The innings ended with no more wickets falling as Jonathan Whitehead returned to his magnificent best with an emphatic 67 not out which included 7 sixes and 4 fours. The highlights being one into the car park and a couple that made the trees look small that protect the courtyard. Cobus accompanied the opener finishing 11 not out at the other end to see Lowerhouse over the line in the 19th over.
This made it 4 wins in 4 for the champions who now sit just 4 point off the summit of the table after failing to pick up the bowling bonus points in two of their opening fixtures. A fantastic start from a team hit hard by players leaving for pastures new again showing the Lowerhouse will to win still lives on.
A strange scheduling of fixtures sees Lowerhouse visit Rishton on both days next weekend with the league fixture on Saturday and the start of the world famous Worsley cup on the Sunday. As was seen on social media following Sundays game a very big thank you to the Lowerhouse faithful who braved the cold to support the team and we hope to see you all again when we travel to Rishton.
