BY GLEN SANDS
First Division Outcasts reached the Quarter Finals of the George Marshall Trophy for the first time in their history when causing something of an upset by beating Premier Division Cherry Willingham in a high scoring affair on June 21st.
Cherry won the toss and chose to bat first , setting off at a rate of knots despite losing Tim Shooter for 14 , bowled by skipper Liam McAnaney with the total on 17 then the highly impressive Will Carter and youngster Jack McGill added another quickfire 41 before Tom Sharpe bowled the latter for 19.Carter threatened to take the game away from the Isle side with some outstanding shots that saw him bring up his half century but just when they needed a wicket Carter drilled a catch straight back to Scott Buttrick and he was gone for 60 with the overall total on 124. Buttrick repeated the feat when Dan Laughton fell just three runs later and with Darren Clark joining his spin twin at the other end Cherry's run rate began to fall dramatically. Mark O'Halloran batted well for his 39 then played a poor shot to be bowled by Buttrick and Scott Coupland quickly followed for seven , caught by Tom Sharpe off Clark to reduce the home side to 146 for 6.Andy Johnson and Lee Coupland took the score to 174 onlt for the returning Mc|Ananey to then have the former caught by Josh Bramhill for 18 then came the first of two run outs that meant that Cherry failed to break the 200 mark , Darren Clark ending the innings with a direct hit when aiming at just one stump as it closed on 193 all out. Scott Buttrick ( 3 for 50 ) and Liam McAnaney ( 3 for 28 ) were the pick of the bowling for Outcasts although Darren Clark's 1 for 19 from nine overs was an exceptional performance for his first bowl of the season.
The Priorymen lost a couple of early wickets when they set about their reply , Buttrick being spectacularly caught at slip by Russ Binnington off Will Carter for five and Oliver Coulman bowled by Jim Gray for seven but Josh Bramhill and John Stokoe then put together a terrific partnership of 83 with some tremendous batting , Bramhill in particular growing in confidence with each boundary which saw him bring up a well deserved 51. Will Carter was brought back on and immediately brought his team back into contention when bowling Bramhill and he followed that by trapping Stokoe LBW for 37 to make it a nervy ew overs for the visitors. Darren Clark drilled a catch straight to Tim Shooter off Graham Priestley to further add to Outcasts woes but Richard Wroot and Oliver Hoare then steadied the ship , adding thirty before Hoare mirrored Clark's dismissal having hit a quickfire 16. A shock was still on the cards but they needed to keep calm as Cherry made run scoring somewhat tough but Wroot hit 23 valuable runs to move his team nearer the winning post but there was another twist as he was well caught by wicket keeper Coupland off Tim Shooter with another 24 still required. That brought Russell Fletcher and Tom Sharpe together with twelve overs remaining and they proceded to nudge and guide the ball around to see their team home to the uncharted territory of the Quarter Finals and another match up with a Premier Division side , namely Caistor Town on July 6th , Fletcher finishing on 12 not out and Sharpe on nine.
So the unbeaten run continued for Outcasts first eleven and they will look to stretch it furthe on June 28th when they play hosts to Horncastle in Division One whilst the second eleven , who are also unbeaten in Division Three head to South Kelsey hoping to maintain their place at the top of the table.
No comments:
Post a Comment