LUDDINGTON PROMOTED AS UNBEATEN CHAMPIONS

Champions Luddington CC

BY GLEN SANDS

Luddington's last game of the year was their first visit to league newcomers Blyth. When the sides met at the start of the season, Luddington won by over one hundred runs and set in motion a pattern of results which saw them rise to the top of the division while Blyth moved in the opposite direction. One of the reasons behind Luddington's success this year has been the lack of change in its line-up but due to work commitments three ever-presents were unavailable and several others were otherwise engaged resulting in the Isle side attempting to win the league title with only nine players.

Blyth won the toss, elected to bat and made a solid start through openers Dalton and Cooper. Luddington' two-man shortage wasn't as harmful on Blyth's compact ground as it might have been on a larger field but at the drinks break after twenty overs the home team's score of seventy-seven without loss was a cause for mild concern. It took a bowling change to turn the game in Luddington's favour. Darren Clark's unerringly accurate slow right-arm spin made the breakthrough as he dived to take a sublime return catch to remove Dalton for forty-three. Blyth's score had reached one hundred when he found the faintest edge on Widdowson's bat to give captain Gareth Parkin, standing in as wicket keeper, an easy catch. Luddington's other spinner, Arron Curry, tightened his side's grip on the game with four wickets for no runs in ten balls during which time Clark had the other opener, Cooper, leg before wicket for forty-one. Number nine batsman Andy Brealey scored fourteen handsome runs at the end of Blyth's innings to leave them on 121 for nine wickets from their forty overs.

The tea interval came just as the light drizzle of the previous half hour became a downpour and even though the covers were in place for the extended meal break, the umpires delayed the beginning of Luddington's reply until the puddles had disappeared.

The Clark brothers, Darren and Graham, opened the batting and made quick progress before Darren was given out lbw for sixteen. Graham departed for seven in the same fashion in the tenth over bringing Andy Lawson to the wicket. A brief, explosive innings of fourteen which included three boundaries ended when he was clean bowled to give Andy Toft his third wicket. Jamie Arrowsmith joined Gareth Parkin at the wicket with the innings in a parlous state and the destination of the league trophy far from certain. The two batsmen moved the score along with Parkin happy to prod and wheedle leisurely singles while the freer-scoring Arrowsmith took advantage of any loose deliveries to race past his partner's score. An off-drive for two runs took him to his first half-century for the club but his triumph was short-lived as Blyth captain Jack Tarr clean bowled him with his next ball. The standing ovation as he left the field was a just reward for a match-turning innings although fourteen runs were still needed from the remaining eight overs.

Arron Curry scored two before he too was bowled but Parkin scored the winning runs in the final over with a shot past mid-on better suited to the baseball diamond than the MCC coaching manual to finish on thirty not out. 

Andrew Clark (not out 0) and unused batsmen Oliver Saxon and Jimmy Roe joined the showered and changed players in the clubhouse to reflect on a close match and successful season which sees Luddington promoted as Champions and the only unbeaten team in the entire league.

Only one game remains - the Phil Hanson Memorial Challenge Match against Garthorpe at Luddington on September 16th.

Picture kindly supplied by Oliver J Saxon LLB (Hons)