STRING OUT THE BUNTING, RASEN 2nds WIN

By Andy Richley

A win! Market Rasen 2nds had waited long enough to get off the mark in 2010, but finally found their feet with a hard-fought victory on the wide open plains of Keelby. Put into bat, Rasen’s opening pair of Ivan Nash and Darren Salmon tucked into the bowling with gusto from the off. After his brief sojurn with the 1sts last week, Nash picked up where he’d left off, dominating the bowling, as he has done so far this season. With Salmon keen to take advantage of his opportunity at the top of the order the pair cracked on, putting on 50 in the first ten overs.
Keelby turned to spin to try and calm the run rate and whilst this didn’t happen immediately, it did buy them a wicket. Salmon had found the high, looping deliveries of James Cowie to his liking and, having already taken 14 off an over, took one chance too many, smearing the left-armer straight to Danny Bevis at long on. Salmon’s 36 from 43 balls was an excellent innings, but his self-destruction was frustrating in the extreme and left Rasen on 83 for 1 after 14 overs.
With Salmon gone, Keelby rang the changes again, bringing on Bruce Roberts to share the burden with Udi Sheikh and whilst Nash continued on his merry way, the run rate came down, as he added 40 for the second wicket with a becalmed Andy Richley. The dismissal of Rasen’s skipper by Roberts sparked a mini-collapse that was to bring Keelby right back into the game. From 123 for 1, Rasen’s middle order crumbled to 147 for 7, with Udi Sheikh causing most of the damage after Roberts’ initial breakthrough. Creating all sorts of problem with his loop and getting the ball to turn and bounce, the spinner revelled in his first long spell of the season, rolling up Rasen’s naive line-up to finish with 6 for 61 from 17.4 overs. Rasen were grateful to Nash’s run-a-ball 82 that held the top half of the innings together. Unleashing his full array of strokes and timing the ball delightfully Nash had looked set for his maiden ton until Sheikh pinned him LBW.
Amidst the carnage of the lower order, one man was allowed to stand firm; Luke Chambers. The rugged middle-order slugger was dropped twice by Keelby, but made them pay for the missed chances with a perfectly timed innings. He added 27 runs for the 8th wicket with Rory Jackson to turn the momentum back to the visitors and his 33 not out boosted the visitors to 194 all out. For Keelby, Sheikh was assisted by Bruce Roberts (2 for 32 from 11 overs) and M. Phillips (1 for 38 from 9).
At tea-time consensus outside Keelby’s well-appointed pavilion was that Rasen’s score was probably below par for the conditions and the track, especially considering the start they’d had. However, Keelby had to crack on at five an over from the off to be in with a chance and Rasen’s young attack set about their task with vigour and enthusiasm.
Aaron Wells and Graham Charman started with the new cherry and, in their contrasting styles, asked questions of the home side’s opening pair; Andy Sharp and skipper Jeremy Slater. Wells generated some real pace, as he did last week at Hibaldstow. Unlike last week, he found a fuller length and was unlucky not to reap the benefit, repeatedly beating the batsmen outside off stump and going for a miserly five runs from his first five overs. At the other end Charman was sending down his medium-paced darts to good effect, particularly to the right-handers.
With the run rate climbing, Wells claimed a hand in both of Rasen’s early wickets. Slater was found short of his ground with the stumps downed from a direct hit from Shaun French on what had seemed a routine single and then Danny Bevis was run out without facing a ball as Sharp called for a sharp single (sorry about that) on a well timed cover drive off Wells, only to see Rob Chamberlin pull off a fine stop and then throw the stumps down at the striker’s end.
Settling down from the madness, Sharp and youngster D. Mawer set about rebuilding the Keelby innings and the pair put on 75 for the third wicket, cashing in on the bad balls that came along and making the most of the chances that Rasen failed to take. Sharp’s innings was watchfully aggressive, with a mixture of doughty defiance and well-executed attacking shots and it was a surprise when he finally fell to Richley for 38, sending the ball straight to Nash at square-leg for the first of his three catches.
With the looping, left-arm, spin of Luke Chambers now joining Richley’s efforts, Mawer, who’d played a fine hand to this point, found himself becalmed against the left-armed all-rounder and was lured into an unwise heave to fall for 30 and leave Keelby 90 for 4.
Despite the efforts of T. Renney (26), Keelby continued to lose wickets at regular intervals, with the part-time medium pace of Rob Chamberlin bottling things up and Rasen rotating their other pace and spin options to keep the batsmen off-balance. The home side faded with Darren Salmon finishing things off in the last over as, despite Rasen giving up 34 extras, Keelby were bowled out for 173.
Rasen’s wickets were shared around the attack by Salmon (2 for 41), Richley (2 for 39 from 13 overs), Chambers (2 for 28) and Chamberlin (1 for 10 from 5 overs), who were backed up by some fine fielding, even accounting for the, now regulation, dropped catches.
This vital win for Rasen 2nds sees them off the bottom of Lincs League 4 not a moment too soon, with two weeks off until they visit Alford at the end of the month.